


Needle in the Camel's Eye

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Getting Together, Lack of Communication, M/M, Paranoia, Post-Canon, The infamous foul mouth of Curt Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-05-14 14:44:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 64,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19275445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Following their meeting in the bar, Arthur encounters Curt in the subway, and offers to buy him a drink...which leads to much more than just a drink, of course.  But Curt won't give Arthur his phone number afterwards, insisting that his phone is wiretapped.  As their relationship continues in secret, paranoia and doubts set in...Really, this is a festival of total lack of communications.  Kind of a character study in what happens to one's fanfic-writing when one's bedridden for a month with what should be nothing but a freaking cold. :P  (One of the many reasons it's taken me over a year to get it posted.  It needed SO much revision!)  It will likely have you shouting "just tell him how you feel already!"  Possibly many times over.  But that makes it a refreshing change from my usual over-optimistic fluff, yes?  (Not that it doesn't have its share of fluffiness, too...)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please let me know if you spot any inappropriate Americanisms in the POV or dialog of British characters.
> 
> Oh, and as a side-note, this was the last major fic I wrote prior to getting my hands on a copy of the screenplay and learning that the Death of Glitter concert was supposed to be in the winter of 1975. I had actually kind of made it a plot point in this fic that it took place in the summer of 1974, though, so...I guess that makes this a teeny tiny bit of an AU? (There are a few other minor inconsistencies with the details that were written in the script but not made explicit onscreen, too, but that's the biggest one.)

            As Arthur rinsed the beer off the pin, he found himself mentally revisiting the first time Curt had walked out of his life.  He’d been sitting there on that filthy old mattress, watching as Curt slung his jacket back on.  Somehow, Arthur hadn’t been concerned by the imminent signs of departure.  Of course he hadn’t:  he had been a teenager, quick to believe himself the darling of everyone’s eye, no matter how improbable it was.  And why _wouldn’t_ he have thought so?  On his first night in London, he had wandered into a club and almost immediately been spotted—and blown a kiss—by one of the performers on stage, and after the performance was over, the entire band eagerly invited him to come live with them, sharing everything with them—especially their beds—and for the following five months they had taken him everywhere, buying him a beautiful new wardrobe, and introducing him to all their glamorous friends, not even taking offense if Arthur snuck off with one of those friends for a snog—or a shag—so long as he was happy to come back to their beds again afterwards.  And then Curt Wild, the most desirable—and the most desired—man in England—if  not the whole world—had wanted to sneak off to the rooftop to make a conquest of him.  Of _course_ Arthur had gotten a bit of a swelled head about his own irresistibility.  In those circumstances, what teenage boy wouldn’t?

            Still, no matter how confident he had been, he hadn’t acted like he expected Curt had fallen madly in love with him.  As Curt was fastening up his jacket, all Arthur had asked was “Will I ever see you again?”

            It was probably a question Curt had heard hundreds of times already, and yet he looked surprised—almost saddened—by it.  He had hesitated a moment, then walked over to Arthur and stroked his cheek with one hand.  “There’s not a lot of time for it,” he said.  “I’m heading back to America in a couple days.”

            “Oh…”  Arthur had been so unprepared for that answer that he hadn’t even known how to reply to it.

            Then Curt had crouched down in front of him and kissed him sweetly.  It was still one of the nicest kisses Arthur had ever partaken of.  “If you ever come to America, look me up sometime.”  Another kiss, more brief than the previous one, then Curt had left the roof, walking out of his life.

            If Arthur had had a passport back then, he probably would have hopped on the first plane to America to follow him.  But of course he _hadn’t_ a passport, and by the time he could get one, he had gotten wrapped up in other things—the Flaming Creatures were never short on drama to engage his attention, one way or another—that it was years by the time he finally left England for America.  And by then he was trying to put that life behind him, so he had never tried to contact Curt.

            Not until today.

            Their meeting just now left him with more questions than answers, of course.  Yet as he fastened the green pin onto his shirt, just below the collar, the only questions he could focus on were “Does he remember me?” and “Did he give me this because he still wants me?”

            As he headed out of the gents’, Arthur reflected sadly that he wasn’t sure if there was even any way to ask.  That phone number he had rung earlier had certainly led to Curt, but he hadn’t been alone.  Arthur had clearly heard him asking someone “What do you want me to say to this guy?”  He couldn’t be sure that the number had even been Curt’s; it might have belonged to the other person, in which case Curt had probably been their unwilling guest, given the fear he had registered when he had first realised Arthur was the same man who had been investigating Brian’s current whereabouts.

            But in that case, he reasoned as he left the bar, Curt probably _didn’t_ remember him.  And yet, if he didn’t, then why had he given him Brian’s love token?  If only Arthur could just _ask_ him…

            Arthur made his way to the nearest subway station, still pondering his situation.  As he got near the bottom of the stairs, he could hear a train coming in.  Taking off at a run—just in case it was the train he needed—he hurried onto the platform, where he unconsciously stopped dead in surprise and delight.  Curt was standing just on the edge of the platform, grinding out his cigarette under his foot.  Once he finished, he started boarding the train.

            “Curt, wait!” Arthur shouted, starting to run again.

            Curt looked at him, then stopped, standing right in the door, keeping it from closing until Arthur could get on the train as well.  As the doors slid shut behind him, they moved off to one corner of the car, where Curt just looked at him expectantly.

            Arthur couldn’t help glancing around him.  There were a lot of people on the train.  Well, it hadn’t been _that_ long since the concert ended.  He should have been expecting that.  But he couldn’t very well ask Curt such private questions where other people could hear!  “I, uh, I was wonderin’ if, er, maybe I could buy you a drink and we could talk some more,” Arthur eventually said.  A pathetic thing to suggest, considering what he _actually_ wanted.  But even offering to buy him a drink was dangerously close to the socially unacceptable concept of propositioning another man.  “Who knows how long it might be before we bump into each other again,” he added, hoping to sound slightly less suspicious to any locals who might be eavesdropping on them.

            Curt shrugged.  “No reason to refuse a free beer,” he said lightly, before leaning back against the wall of the car.  He didn’t speak, and turned his head idly in front of him, but every so often his eyes strayed over to Arthur, and a little smile turned up the corners of his lips.

            After an interminable wait, Curt finally motioned for Arthur to get off at the next stop.  Once the subway was departing without them, they made their way back up to the sidewalk, where Curt immediately stopped to light another cigarette.

            “So,” he started, after having taken a drag, “is it the buying that’s important, or just the beer?”

            “More the talking, really,” Arthur said.

            Curt shut his eyes as if in thought.  “My place isn’t far from here.  Better for talking than some bar.”

            Arthur nodded, hoping he didn’t look too eager.  “Sounds good to me,” he agreed.

            Without another word, Curt led the way through the dimly lit streets.  It was a reasonably nice neighbourhood, the type mostly populated by middle class families and yuppies unburdened by children.  Not really the neighbourhood Arthur would have expected Curt to live in; he had always expected either an area filled with the ultra-rich—other rock stars, movie stars, and other such glamorous people—or a dangerous area where Curt was only safe because he was so tough that even the street punks were afraid of him.

            Curt’s building was entirely unremarkable, hardly distinguishable from the others along the street, particularly in the dark.  The interior was nothing special, either.  Much nicer than the building where Arthur’s flat was, but far from exciting.  Except for the company:  Curt made any room exciting by his very presence.

            As they waited for the lift, Curt put out his cigarette in an ashtray built into the wall.  The lift was thankfully not the type that had irritatingly bad music piped in to drive the passengers mad.  They still weren’t speaking as they rode it up to the tenth floor.  Though by the fifth floor, Curt’s hand had just started a journey down Arthur’s back towards his arse, a journey that was regrettably halted immediately when the doors opened again on the sixth floor, and an old woman got on the lift with them.  She smiled at them blankly—presumably not having seen Curt’s hand hastily withdrawn from the small of Arthur’s back—and pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.

            It was quite the relief when the doors of the lift opened to let them out on the tenth floor, even if the walk down the quiet hallway to Curt’s door made Arthur realise just how impatient he was for them to finally be utterly alone together.  It seemed to take a small eternity just for Curt to fish his keys out of his pocket and open the door of his flat.

            The flat turned out to be nearly as unremarkable as the building.  Aside from a nice stereo, and a guitar leaning against an amp nearby, there was little about the place to signify that there was anything special about its occupant.  Or, for that matter, to suggest that there even _was_ an occupant.

            Curt bolted the door and put a chain in place before he turned to look at Arthur.  “Did you actually want a beer?” he asked.  “Or did you just want to talk?  Or,” he paused for a slightly lecherous smile, “do you wanna just skip all that and go straight to the bedroom?”

            Answering with words was going to be too slow!  Arthur leaned in and started kissing him, releasing all the desire that had been building up for the last ten years.  Curt responded with a refreshing ardour, pulling Arthur’s body in close and tight.  At first.  Then, spontaneously, he suddenly pried his lips away from Arthur’s, with an unpleasant growl.

            “Lemme at least catch my breath!” Curt snapped at him.  “The fuck’s the matter with you?”

            “I’m sorry.”  Arthur tilted his head to the side to kiss Curt’s cheek, brushing his hair aside so that he could move in closer to his ear.  “I’ve been dreamin’ about this for the last ten years,” he explained, just barely above a whisper, before starting to suck on Curt’s earlobe.

            Curt chuckled.  “Your own fault for not looking me up sooner.”

            They stayed like that for another minute or two, Arthur kissing and nibbling at Curt’s ear, and Curt gently stroking his arse with one hand and his hair with the other.  Then Curt pushed him away a bit.  “Let’s go into the bedroom before my pants get any tighter,” he said.

            Naturally, Arthur agreed eagerly, and was soon being led by the hand through Curt’s flat…

 

***

 

            Curt woke up to the realization that if he didn’t take a leak in the next five seconds, he was absolutely going to go right where he was lying.  Might have been good for a laugh if they’d been in a cheap motel somewhere—Arthur was probably the type who’d have hysterics if someone started peeing on him—but Curt wasn’t about to piss his own bed, so he got up damned quick and headed into the bathroom.  By the time he was done in there, he found himself insanely hungry, so he headed for the kitchen…though he ended up on the floor first, having tripped on the clothes strewn all over the place.  Dragged Arthur’s briefs halfway down the hall before he could get his foot untangled, too.  Curt figured that was Arthur’s fault for wearing such square underwear in the first place.

            Fortunately, there was still half a leftover pizza in the refrigerator, and it didn’t seem to have gone weird yet.  As Curt was putting a few slices in the microwave, he saw the lights flip on in the bedroom.  Well, if Arthur was up, he’d better heat up _all_ the pizza.  It probably wasn’t going to be good for much longer anyway.  As soon as it was finished reheating, Curt grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge, and brought it all into the bedroom.

            Arthur was just returning from the bathroom as Curt got into the room with the food.  In the last ten years, he’d lost that irresistible boy-on-the-edge-of-manhood body, that skinny shape that was halfway between boy and girl, but it was definitely still a sexy body, and Curt was practically getting a semi just looking at him.

            “It’s two in the morning,” Arthur pointed out.  “Isn’t that an odd time for a meal?”

            “You’re not hungry?”

            “Well, maybe a little,” Arthur admitted, “but…”

            Curt shook his head, and sat down on the bed, setting the plate of pizza down beside him.  “You don’t get laid much, do you?”

            Arthur’s whole body flushed red.  “It’s been awhile,” he admitted.

            “This is practically standard procedure in this city,” Curt insisted.  “You have pizza in the middle of the night after fucking.”

            “It hasn’t been _that_ long,” Arthur said, his eyes narrowing.  “I _have_ had sex in America before, and I’ve never had anyone expect—”

            “Just shut up and eat.”

            Arthur sighed, and accepted one of the bottles of beer as he sat down on his own side of the bed.  “Where did the pizza come from?  You ‘aven’t been up long enough to order it.”

            “Leftovers,” Curt explained, having a swallow of his own beer. ~~~~

            Though he looked a bit dubious about it, Arthur picked up a slice.  And promptly started struggling with it, trying to eat it without folding it over.  That figured.  Well, at least he wasn’t using a knife and fork…

            Once they were done with the pizza, Curt put the plate aside and leaned back in bed, savoring the last of his beer.  “So, how long have you been in America, anyway?” he asked, glancing over Arthur.

            “Uh…it’s been…about five or six years, I suppose.”

            “Why the _fuck_ didn’t you look me up as soon as you got here?”  If he’d showed up on Curt’s doorstep right away, they’d have been free to do or say whatever they wanted, unlike now…

            Arthur looked away from his accusing gaze.  Or decided he really wanted to investigate the blinds on the window.  Came to the same thing.  “I…I guess…I thought…you wouldn’t remember me…”

            Curt grimaced, putting his empty bottle on the bedside table beside the others.  “Seriously?” he asked.  “Have you _ever_ met _anyone_ who actually forgot you?”

            “What?”  Arthur looked back over at him, his expression almost alarmed.  “What’s that—what do you mean?”

            “No one’s going to forget a man as pretty as you are.”

            Arthur’s full-body blush returned impressively quickly.  “That’s…that’s not…”

            “Yeah, it is,” Curt assured him, cutting off the stammering denial before it could finish.  It was kind of cute, but there was no point letting it run its full course.

            If anything, Arthur’s blush actually got deeper.  Looked a bit painful, really.  “A man’s not supposed to be ‘pretty’,” he finally said, his voice a little weak.

            Curt sighed.  “That’s the establishment talking.  You were _working_ at being beautiful ten years ago.”  Same as Brian…

            “Yeah…I suppose I was,” Arthur admitted.  He leaned back in the bed, setting his beer bottle—still half full, from the sound of it—on the empty table beside him.  “It’s hard to remember that was really me,” he sighed.  “That life just doesn’t exist anymore.”

            “You don’t have to tell _me_ that.”  The last time Curt had gone out on stage with painted nails and dark eye-liner, the audience had actually fucking _laughed_ at him.  So of course he’d thrown the microphone, stand and all, at them; no matter what any stiff-shirts said, it had been a perfectly reasonable response!  But he had ended up in court, being sued by a couple dozen people for damages.  The ‘80s were shit.

            “Do you miss it?” Arthur asked.

            “Do you?”

            Arthur laughed, but it was an uncomfortable sound that sent a cold finger tracing its way down Curt’s spine.  “Before a few days ago, I didn’t.  Now…I miss some of it.  I don’t think I could ever dress that way again, but everything felt so honest then.  Not like now.”

            “Yeah.  No room for personal honesty—or any other kind,” Curt sighed.  “Today’s world is toe the line or get shot in the face.”

            “You do mean that metaphorically, right?” Arthur asked, looking at him with concern.  How had he made a career out of being a reporter and yet stayed so damned naïve?  Then again, maybe they were more reluctant to act on an English citizen…

            “What I miss,” Curt said, trying to avoid answering Arthur’s newer question, “is feeling like I’m part of something.  We had something beautiful.  Not just me and Brian—everyone.  Everyone’s music was different, but it was all about expressing our inner selves, physically and emotionally, through the music and the clothes and the sex…”  He grimaced.  Was he at all getting his point across?  Maybe it was too late at night to be trying to express deep thoughts.  “That was how you knew when someone got it and when they didn’t.  The people who couldn’t understand why I wanted to work with Brian or Jack because our music was so different, they were the people who just didn’t fucking get it.  Jack was the most true to himself person I ever met, on top of being one of the best performers.  Of course I wanted to work with him.  And Brian…back then, he was always honest about himself, too…”

            Curt felt Arthur’s hand settle reassuringly on his shoulder.  “You don’t ‘ave to explain,” he said.  “Believe me, _I_ understand.  I always understood.”

            Curt chuckled.  “You’d have to, if you were living with the Flaming Creatures.”

            Arthur’s cheeks were tinged pink again.  “You even remembered that…?”

            “You kidding?  One of ‘em called me the next day to bitch at me about it.  It’d be hard to forget.”

            “Really?”

            “Yeah.  Seemed to think I was trying to steal you away from them,” Curt chuckled.  He might not have minded doing just that, actually.  Though he had started feeling bad about the idea after being subjected to such pained jealousy.

            “They never told me about that…”

            Curt laughed, hard.  “They never told you that they had a jealous fit when they found out I’d fucked you.  Yeah, that’s a shock.”

            Arthur’s laugh was more nervous, but it led into a beautiful smile that was making Curt extremely horny…  “Did they have reason to be jealous?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly, as if his whole universe rested on Curt’s answer.

            “You’re here now, aren’t you?  I think that proves they did,” Curt chuckled.  “Maybe you don’t understand just how special this is,” he added, gesturing at their bodies lying close together in the bed.  “I don’t usually have sex with guys taller than me.”

            Arthur laughed.  “Yeah, me either,” he said, before relapsing into laughter.

            “Oh, you’re fucking joking now?  Making fun of me, are you?” Curt demanded, doing his best to sound angry.  “You just wait—I’m gonna find some seven foot tall behemoth and have him fuck you.  Then see how you like it!”

            Arthur didn’t stop laughing.  “Sure you will,” he chortled.

            “I’ll teach you to laugh at me!”

       Curt pounced on him, half-aggression, half-joke.  They wrestled around a bit, making a terrible tangle of the sheets, laughing every time they got so tangled that they couldn’t keep up their play-fight without kicking off some of the bedding.  By the time they stopped, they were in the center of an all but stripped bed, and Curt was above Arthur, pinning him down with hands on his shoulders and knees on his thighs.  Despite his helpless position, Arthur just smiled up at him dreamily until Curt leaned his head down to kiss him.

            They only kept kissing for a little while before Curt couldn’t contain his desire to give every inch of Arthur’s body a thorough inspection.  Gently, he made his way down the side of his neck, kissing and licking, and across the chest to one hard nipple, which he nibbled on tenderly, making Arthur moan.  Curt looked away from the other man’s chest to look at his rapturous face.

            “Were you serious when you said it had been a long time since the last time you got laid?” Curt asked, finding it completely implausible.

            Arthur turned red again, and looked over at his beer bottle.  “…yeah,” he said, after a series of uncomfortable little noises that didn’t properly count as words of any sort.

            “How long?” Curt asked, using one hand to twist the other nipple just a bit.

            “Mnn!”  Arthur’s eyes were shut as his head turned back towards the ceiling, one lip tightly gripped between his teeth.  “I…I guess… a few years…”

            “Why?”  Curt kissed his way down towards the navel, running his fingers across the lean chest as he did so.  Arthur obviously hadn’t been working out; he had no more muscle tone than he had ten years ago.

            “Too choosy?”

            Curt laughed.  That would have been a much more convincing answer if it hadn’t been spoken like a question.  “So, how many?” he asked, sliding one hand down Arthur’s pelvis towards his surprisingly large erection.  “How many other people have ever shared a bed with this pretty little ass?” he went on, teasingly sliding his hand aside at the last moment, slipping it underneath Arthur’s body to caress the sweet ass that had occasionally haunted Curt’s dreams over the last ten years.

            Without opening his eyes, Arthur started counting on his fingers.  Curt leaned his head down to kiss the sides of his groin, letting his loose hair brush against Arthur’s cock, causing tender little gasps every time it did so.

            “Seven men,” Arthur eventually said, his voice breathy, “and three women.”

            “Shit, really?”  Curt looked back up at him, disbelieving.  “What a waste!  You’ve seriously only fucked ten people?!”

            “Eleven, counting you.”

            Curt grimaced.  “Considering four of those seven other men were the Flaming Creatures, it’s obviously not that you’re holding out for the truly sexy.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Their musical talents made up for anything they lacked visually,” he insisted.

            “Oh, you’ll fuck anyone who can play a good guitar?”

            “No, of course not…”  Arthur’s voice was practically breaking.  Did that mean he was lying, and he really _would_ fuck anyone as long as they were a good musician?  That sucked.  No, more than just sucking.  That just plain wouldn’t do.  It was fine if some fan, right after a concert, was overpowered by Curt’s musical genius and just _needed_ to give his body to Curt out of sheer sexual thrill generated by the performance, but years after the fact?  That was not a reason Curt could accept for getting laid, no matter how good it was.

            “I’m not sure I believe that,” Curt said, running his fingers through the dark, curly hairs in front of his face.  “How many of the others were also musicians?”

            Arthur coughed.  “Actually…um…”

            “Don’t you dare say all of them.”  Curt tightened his fingers around the hairs to prove he was serious that he wasn’t going to accept that.

            “No, not all…but…well, most of them were people the Creatures introduced me to at shows…”  Arthur laughed nervously.  “If it’s any consolation, most of them weren’t actually very good.”

            “As musicians, or in bed?”

            “Both, really.”

            Curt laughed, and finally released Arthur’s pubes.  “Is that the real reason it’s been so long since you had sex?  You started thinking it was always gonna suck?”

            Arthur chuckled as he shook his head.  “It’s too hard to safely meet men in this city.  And women…I don’t seem to have what they want.”

            “Of course you have what they want,” Curt said.  “It’s right here,” he added, running one finger along the length of Arthur’s cock.

            Arthur let out a pleased moan that seemed to wrap itself around Curt’s cock and squeeze it.  God, what a beautiful sound!  Far more beautiful than anything he’d produced last night while Curt was fucking him.  Curt wanted to hear more, so he started gently running his tongue along the head, prompting another moan, possibly even more seductive than the first one.

            So what kind of noises would Arthur make if he got the full treatment?

            Curt had to know.

            After licking the shaft a few times, Curt slowly took Arthur’s entire erection into his mouth, causing Arthur to moan his name.  If he kept that up, Curt might come before _he_ did…

            But Curt hadn’t been going very long before he felt Arthur’s fingers tangling in his hair, pulling up, as if he was trying to pull Curt off him.  “Please stop,” Arthur gasped after the pulling did nothing.  “I want to…please…let me suck on yours, too.”

            There was nothing in the world that would have stopped Curt from agreeing to _that_ request!  If anyone out there was keeping records for such things, Curt probably broke the world record for repositioning from blowjob to 69.  And he had barely gotten into position before he felt Arthur’s lips on his cock, sucking it into his mouth with outright desperation, as if he was actually trying to swallow it whole.  Felt so good that Curt had to shut his eyes and just _enjoy_ for a few seconds before he could lower his head again and resume sucking on Arthur’s.

            It wasn’t long before they had both shot their wads into each other’s mouths in a joyous release.  God, why had it been so fucking long since Curt had done this?  So much better than just _getting_ a blowjob…

            Still filled with rapture, they both slowly sat up, kneeling in the center of the bed and trading salty kisses.

            Once they’d had their fill of kissing—and started getting a little chilly—they retrieved the covers from the floor, and snuggled up together in the middle of the bed.  Soon enough, Curt was drifting off into a peaceful sleep.

 

***

 

            The light hitting his closed eyelids was telling Arthur that it was high time he was out of bed, but he didn’t want to finish waking up.  So long as he was still asleep, he could lie there in Curt’s bed, feeling the warmth of his body pressed up behind him, and his arm draped over him.  But as soon as he woke up…all that would go away.  Again.  Maybe forever this time.

            Arthur tried to tell himself that the signs were all promising.  Curt not only remembered him, but had remembered all sorts of little details about their previous night together.  And this time they had made love _three_ times, not just two.  After a middle of the night oral session, Arthur had woken near dawn to the feeling of Curt’s erection poking him gently.  Of course Arthur had been eager to give him what he wanted—after all, it was the same thing Arthur wanted, too.  But Arthur had dozed off afterwards, which he really shouldn’t have done.  He had to go to work today, after all.

            Curt’s stomach growled behind him, and then—to Arthur’s dismay—the arm draped across his body vanished, and the warmth of Curt’s body faded from his back.  “What do you want for lunch?” Curt asked.

            “Lunch?” Arthur repeated, his eyes shooting open.  He sat up and looked over at the clock on Curt’s bedside table.  “Shite!”  Leaping out of bed, Arthur started frantically trying to reclaim his clothes from the mess all over the floor.

            “What the fuck?”

            “I was due at work more than two hours ago!” Arthur exclaimed, pointing at the clock that read nearly 11:30.

            Curt laughed uncomfortably.  “Oh.  Sorry.”  There was silence for a moment, while Arthur hunted in vain for his pants.  “Your underwear’s out in the hall,” Curt told him.  “I tripped over it last night.  By the way, don’t you think you better shower first?”

            Arthur grimaced, and gave his body a tentative sniff.  Yes, a shower was definitely in order.  “I can’t believe I did this,” he muttered, as he hurried towards the shower.  “I _never_ oversleep…”

            It wasn’t a proper shower.  Just a quick rinse and one pass with a bar of soap.  But that would hopefully be enough to keep him from turning up late _and_ reeking of Curt’s musky bed.  By the time he came out, Curt had lit up a cigarette, and was just sitting there, leaning back against the headboard of the bed.  Well, wasn’t _he_ relaxed?  Of course he was.  _He_ wasn’t the one horrifically late to work.

            Still…

            Arthur fretted the whole time he was getting dressed, but there was nothing he could do about it.  He didn’t have time, but this was more important than his job.  After putting his shoes on, he walked over to the foot of the bed, and looked at Curt.  “Will I ever see you again?” he asked.

            There was something sad about Curt’s smile, but in a very different way than he had looked saddened by that question ten years ago.  “You know where I live,” Curt pointed out.  “How could I stop you from coming over?”

            While the implied permission for further visits was nice, it hadn’t been the eager answer Arthur had been hoping for.  Hastily, he fetched his notebook out of his satchel, and wrote his phone number on a blank page.  “I’m leavin’ you my number, all right?” he said, tearing the page out of the notebook.  “Please call me.”

            Curt didn’t say anything, but he waved a hand at Arthur, beckoning him closer.  Obediently, Arthur walked over to the side of the bed.  Curt grabbed him by his shirt, pulling him down into a kiss that tasted unpleasantly like cigarette.  “Not gonna shave?” he asked, running the backs of two fingers across the stubble on Arthur’s cheek.

            “I don’t have time for that,” Arthur sighed.  “I—I ‘ave to go.  Right now.”

            Curt nodded, and Arthur made a dash for the door.  The only thing on his side right now was the fact that Curt’s flat was much closer to the _Herald_ ’s offices than Arthur’s was; the ride to work wouldn’t be nearly as lengthy as usual.

            But a shorter commute wasn’t going to make up for coming in at noon when he was supposed to come in at nine.

            Rather than heading to his desk, as soon as he got in, Arthur went straight to Lou’s office to apologise and make some flimsy excuse.  Not that he had picked out an excuse yet, but he hoped he’d be able to extemporise one.  The door to Lou’s office was standing open, so Arthur went right on in, only to find that Murray was already in there.  Both men looked at him with expressions that Arthur could only call ‘bemused.’

            “I was beginning to think something had happened to you,” Lou commented.

            Murray laughed.  “I think it did,” he said, making a gesture in the shape of an hourglass figure.  “You got lucky after the concert last night, huh?”

            Arthur’s shame knew no bounds, and had his face feeling as hot as if it was in a fire.  “Something like that,” he admitted.

            “Hope you weren’t abusing your press pass to get some pretty girl backstage in exchange for a few passes in her bed!” Murray chortled.

            “Of course not!”

            “Little too indignant there,” Murray insisted.

            “You—”

            “Have you written the story yet?” Lou interrupted.  “About the Stone show?”

            “Ah, no, but it won’t take long,” Arthur assured him.  “I could write it in my sleep.”

            “Too bad you weren’t doing any sleeping last night,” Murray laughed.

            “You’d do better mockin’ someone if you didn’t sound so jealous,” Arthur pointed out.  Though Murray would no longer be jealous if he’d had any idea just what kind of sex Arthur had lucked into…

            “As long as you get the story turned in on time, I’ll overlook your tardiness,” Lou said, cutting the argument short.  “Unless it starts happening frequently…”

            “It won’t,” Arthur assured him.  “It won’t happen again.”

            “She didn’t like your performance, huh?” Murray concluded.

            “If there’d been something wrong with my performance, why would I ‘ave been so late?” Arthur countered.  Though the sole _woman_ he had slept with actually had suggested that he lacked certain basic skills…

            Arthur didn’t wait to see if Murray was going to produce a retort.  He rushed back to his desk and hastily wrote up an irritatingly glib little piece about the concert, praising the audience’s delight and the tacky, soulless stage show.  As Curt had said, there was no room for honesty in Reynolds’ America.

            The first draft of the piece was done before his lunch was delivered by the Chinese place down the street.  While Arthur ate, Lou looked over the draft and gave him notes for a revision.

            As Arthur started work on the second draft, ignoring Murray spreading gossip about him at the water cooler not more than a foot behind his back, he couldn’t help grimly reflecting on how he had traded the paradise of Curt’s bed for this dishonest Hell.


	2. Chapter 2

            Arthur had hoped that he would hear from Curt over the weekend.  Maybe Curt would want to have Arthur come over on Sunday and distract him from remembering what had happened on that day ten years previously.  Or maybe it was just Arthur that wanted distracting from it:  after all, he was the one who had _been_ there.  Curt had been hundreds of miles away in Germany, safely cushioned by a language barrier.  Probably hadn’t found out for days.  Maybe he’d never even thought it had really happened:  it was almost certain, one way or another, that he learned about it from Jack Fairy, and he was so close to Mandy that she might have already told him what had really happened, if he hadn’t left England until the next day.

            But 5 February came and went, and Curt never rang him.

            Just like ten years ago.

            Still, maybe he would.  After all, he might be a little cross about Arthur having run off like that.  Curt had never had to work for a living like normal people, so he probably didn’t really get what was so wrong about turning up three hours late.  If Curt was late, he might get a few admonishing words, but no one could do anything more than that.  Curt was a star; wherever he was going, he was the reason everyone else was even there, and therefore above the rules.  After having spent so long living that life, how could he understand the trials of the little people who normally only stared up at him from the ground in front of the stage?

            When the weekend came again, Arthur decided not to wait any longer for Curt to ring him.  Obviously, it wasn’t going to happen.  But as Curt had said, Arthur knew where he lived.  And nothing was going to stop him from going there to see Curt again.

            Curt didn’t look very surprised to see him when he answered the door.  He ushered Arthur inside quickly, but didn’t kiss him until the door was locked and chained.  The only thing he said before they went into the bedroom was “I’m surprised you waited this long to come over.”

            If anything, their sex that Saturday night was even better than the sex the previous week.  As Arthur was drifting off to sleep, wrapped snugly in Curt’s arms, he reflected that he really _should_ have made this move sooner.

            He should have made it years ago.

 

***

 

            The only reason either of them put a stitch of clothing on all day Sunday was that someone had to answer the door when a meal was delivered.  The rest of the day was spent snogging and shagging, with intermittent bursts of sleeping and watching the telly.  It was beautiful.  Maybe one of the best days of Arthur’s entire life.

            Unfortunately, Sunday couldn’t help being followed by Monday.  And that meant Arthur had to go back out into the ugly world.  The world that didn’t seem to have room for Curt anymore.

            He got up early enough Monday morning that he had plenty of time to shower properly, and to shave, and still have time for the very important conversation he had been putting off all weekend.  “I…I’d really like to ‘ave your number,” Arthur said, uncomfortably aware of the fact that he still felt a bit like a helpless little fan rather than any kind of equal.  “The real one.”

            One eyebrow was raised ever so slightly.  Or maybe both; the other one was rather hidden by Curt’s hair.  Actually, it was lucky Arthur could see either of Curt’s eyes at all.  “The real one?” he repeated, his voice laughing.

            Arthur sighed.  “You think I can’t recognise your voice when I hear it, even over a pay phone?”

            Curt grimaced, and shut his eyes.  “Sorry about that.”

            “Who was with you?  Makin’ you lie to me?”

            Curt sighed.  “I dunno.  Couple of strong-arms.”  He opened his eyes again, revealing an agonising pain within them.  “Them or their buddies show up anytime someone comes looking for Brian.  Mandy they just watch, but me they don’t trust.”

            “But you don’t know who they work for?”

            “Not for sure.”

            Arthur shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter.  I’d never be allowed to write the story anyway.  But I still want to be able to contact you without ‘aving to come here and—”

            “Arthur, you don’t understand.”  Curt got up out of the bed and walked over to Arthur, looking right into his eyes.  “I don’t think they’ve bugged my apartment, but I know for a fact they’ve got a wiretap on my phone.  If we talk on the phone even once, they’ll know we’re in contact.”

            “Aren’t you bein’ a little paranoid?”

            “No.”  A sharp rejoinder, almost accusatory.

            Arthur bit his lip.  He wanted desperately to ask what had happened, but he didn’t dare upset Curt further.  “They wouldn’t care that we were in contact.  This is a personal relationship,” he pointed out, running his hands over Curt’s bare chest to rest on the back of his shoulders, “not a professional one.”

            “You’re a reporter, and I have a secret they don’t want the world to know about.  Even if we made them understand we’d been fucking, not talking, they’d still think it was about that secret.  They’d think you were just giving me your body in exchange for that secret.”

            “I…”  What could Arthur say to that?  Was there any point in trying to reply?  Curt probably had good reason to believe that, and from the heavy weight in his voice, he certainly did believe it.  “All right, I understand,” Arthur sighed.

            Curt smiled, and gave him a brief kiss.  “Don’t worry,” he said.  “You just have to come over without calling first.”

            Arthur nodded.  “When?”

            “Whenever fits your schedule.  They’ve run me into the ground here; I can’t go out without them following me around.”  Curt shook his head.  “I’m almost always home by sundown.  I don’t trust those fuckers not to take pot-shots at me under cover of darkness.”

            “Okay.  Then…next weekend?”

            “Sounds good to me,” Curt assured him, with a deep kiss.  “See you then.”

            Arthur tried to be stoic about it.  Curt wanted him to come back for another lovefest.  That was good.  How could it not be?

            But…that wasn’t what Arthur wanted.  He wanted everything he had ever dreamed of.  Walking into posh hotels with their arms around each other.  Kissing publically, to the admiration and envy of all who saw them.  Romantic gestures such as no one else would dare to make…

            Even if it wasn’t possible, Arthur still pined for it.  That perfect love affair with the unattainable ideal that was Curt Wild.

 

***

 

            For the first couple of weekends, Curt wasn’t surprised to see Arthur turning up at his door.  Maybe he’d even have been disappointed if he hadn’t.  But the longer they went on together, the more Curt started to expect that Arthur wouldn’t want to come back again.  Every time Arthur tried to pry into the matter of those assholes who were always watching Curt and got no real response, he got more and more testy about it.  Curt could understand _why_ , of course, but…even if he was positive about who those guys were, it was too risky to talk about it.  But the longer that went on, the more probing questions Arthur asked, the more Curt began to be sure that he wasn’t in it for the sex, just for the story behind the cover-up.  He wasn’t coming as a fan or lover; he was coming as a reporter.

            There was no story here for him.  And even if there had been one, he wouldn’t have been able to print it.  Especially not if he wanted to keep on breathing.  And as soon as he figured that out, of course Arthur was going to stop coming.

            It was depressing, but no more so than anything else in this bullshit world.

            By March, Curt fully expected that every time Arthur walked out of his apartment would be the last time.  But he still kept turning up.  He must have been _really_ desperate to get at that story.

            It was mid-April that Arthur first turned up on a weeknight.  He seemed embarrassed about it, and made some feeble excuses about being badly stressed out.  Curt probably should have turned him away—people were more likely to notice him coming and going in the middle of the week—but Curt had never been good at refusing an offer of hot sex, and let him in without a second thought.  Barely even with a first one, for that matter.

            After that, it became a regular thing.  Roughly every other week, Arthur would come over midweek, as well as on the weekends.  But the more he became mired in covering the election, the more Arthur hounded Curt about those motherfuckers who were protecting Brian’s secret.  Asking if they worked for Tommy Stone, or his corporate sponsors, or if they worked for the Committee for Cultural Renewal itself.  What was Curt supposed to say to that?  He didn’t know who they worked for.  But he knew what they were likely to do to him if he voiced his opinions and they found out.  It didn’t matter how often Arthur came over and allowed Curt the incredible pleasures of his body; he wasn’t getting that story.  Not from Curt.

            The questions started petering out again by the end of May, and they didn’t return in June at all.  The mid-week visits stopped, too.  Clearly, Arthur was giving up.  Getting ready to say good-bye once and for all.  Every weekend was sure to be the last.

            But then he turned up midweek again, looking particularly beautiful; there was something lustrous about his face that Curt hadn’t seen there since the day they met.  All Curt could do was stare at him in confused desire.

            “Is something wrong?” Arthur asked, glancing at the hallway around him.  “Do you…do you want me to go?”

            Curt shook his head, and let Arthur into the apartment quickly.  Whatever had made him turn up so suddenly, Curt couldn’t risk it going away again before he could get laid.  It might be the last time, after all.

            “What’s up?” Curt asked, after the door was safely locked.  He didn’t dare sound as if he was expecting sex.  There was every chance there wasn’t going to be any.  He knew that.  Maybe Arthur just wanted to break it off neat and clean.

            “You…you really have to ask that?”  Arthur’s voice shook as if his heart was breaking.  “Don’t you know what day it is?” he asked, after Curt turned to look at him.

            “Tuesday?”  Wasn’t it?

            Arthur made a slight choking noise in his throat.  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.  “Maybe I shouldn’t ‘ave come.”  He tried to open the door again, but Curt wouldn’t let him.

            “Calm down,” Curt insisted.  “What’s going on?  What day is it?”

            “It’s…today was—is—the day of the Death of Glitter concert,” Arthur said, steadfastly refusing to look into Curt’s eyes.

            “Really?”  Curt glanced into the kitchen to look at the calendar, but what good was that?  He let out a miserable sigh.  “You have any idea how many drugs I was on back then?  I never had any fucking clue what day it was.”

            Arthur looked into his eyes at that, then let out a small smile.  “Well, it was today,” he insisted.

            “I believe you.”  Curt smiled, and kissed him gently.  “So, you wanted to celebrate?  The anniversary?”

            Arthur nodded.

            “I’ll have something nice delivered.  Italian sound good?”

            “Sure.”

            Curt’s hands were shaking as he dialed the phone.  The anniversary of a one-night stand?  What did that even mean?  It was like something in some cheesy movie, where the couple only got together once a year.  Shit, was that where they were headed?  Curt needed to get laid more than once a year…

            He tried pushing all that aside, out of his mind, focusing only on ordering dinner.  Arthur didn’t make it easy for him.  While Curt was placing the order, Arthur stepped up right behind him, slipping his arms around him and leaning in close, pressing his whole body up against Curt’s.  Fucking hell, how was Curt supposed to focus on food in that situation?

            As soon as Curt hung up the phone again, Arthur loosened his grip just enough that Curt could turn around in his arms.  Arthur started kissing him as soon as they were facing each other.  It was really good kissing, but the whole thing felt hollow to Curt.  This wasn’t the truth.  This wasn’t what Arthur was really seeing him for.

            Why were they putting on this act?

            What was the point of it?

 

***

 

            Despite how good the sex had been, Curt’s sleep was uneasy, and by two o’clock, he was wide awake.  He was lying on his back, and could feel the warm hardness of Arthur’s head resting on his chest.  It took him a few minutes to realize how odd that was.  Glancing over at the other man’s body as best he could in the darkness, Curt soon made out the shape of him, curled up in a ball beside Curt.

            “What the fuck?”  He hadn’t really meant to say it aloud, but the situation was just so strange that he couldn’t help it.  Was Arthur actively trying to foster the illusion that he was still nothing but a giddy teenage fan?  Because this was not that.  This was just weird.  Men didn’t do things like this.  Not in Curt’s experience, anyway.

            Arthur stirred and lifted his head, mumbling an inarticulate question in Curt’s direction.

            “Sorry,” Curt said quietly.  “Didn’t mean to wake you.  But doesn’t your back hurt, sleeping in a position like that?”  It was making Curt’s back hurt just thinking about it.

            “A little, yeah,” Arthur admitted, with a weak chuckle as he stretched out until his head was on the pillow next to Curt’s, where it should have been all along.  He slid one hand out onto Curt’s chest, passing it over the spot where his head had been, which now felt a bit chilly, despite the warm summer night.  “But it’s worth it.”

            “What is?”  Surely he didn’t have some kind of freaky fetish for using another man’s chest as a pillow.  What could be the lure in that?  Men’s chests were pretty hard.  Not like using some chick’s tits as a pillow.

            Even in the low light, Arthur’s shy little smile was plainly visible.  “Gettin’ to be this close to you.  Sharin’ your space…”

            Dammit, why did he have to do this to Curt?  Why would he say things that sounded so romantic when he was just chasing a fucking story?  Maybe other men were more hardened against this sort of thing, but it made something twist up inside Curt, hearing words like that and knowing the other man didn’t mean them.  “Why would that be worth putting yourself through pain?” Curt asked, daring him to come up with a reason that wasn’t utter bullshit.

            “Because I love you,” Arthur replied, without even hesitating.  How could he say that so casually?

            “I…”  What was Curt supposed to say to that?  He knew better than to fall in love, after all.  He had made that mistake once, and he was still suffering, more than ten years later.

            “It’s all right,” Arthur said quietly.  “I’m not expectin’ you to feel the same way.  But that’s why I’m so grateful to have this time with you.”

            He was probably just saying it to make Curt feel guilty…and it was working.  It had never even occurred to him to try taking this relationship seriously…

            While Curt was hesitating, unsure how he should reply, Arthur leaned in and started kissing him.  Well, at least _that_ was something easy to respond to.  Curt rolled up onto his side so they could kiss more easily.  They hadn’t been kissing all that long before their stiffening cocks started colliding with each other, adding another layer of intensity to their kisses until Curt couldn’t take it anymore.

            “I’ve got to fuck you right now,” Curt insisted, his voice barely more than a low growl.

            Arthur gave him a quick kiss.  “Of course,” he agreed, his voice soft and breathy.  “How do you want it?”

            Curt shook his head.  “No, you pick the position.”

            There was just enough light to let Curt make out Arthur’s eyebrows raising in surprise.  “Really?  Well, then…face to face.”

            Curt flipped on the light on the bedside table so he could see to find a condom and the lubricant.  Turned out to be the last condom in the package; well, that’d increase the chances that Arthur wouldn’t end up late to work again.  After he put the lube back on the table, Curt didn’t turn the lights back off.  This was going to be much better if he was able to see.

            Despite the awkward position required of him, Arthur let out a pleased moan as Curt entered him, and the look on his face continued to be rapturous the whole time.  Not like the faces Brian used to make; Curt had never been sure if they were pleasure and not pain.  But this was clearly pleasure.  How could he enjoy it that much?  The one time Curt had let Brian talk him into being on the bottom for this kind of encounter, the forced bending of his spine had left Curt in so much pain that he’d hated every minute of it.  Arthur should have been in agony, and yet he seemed to be loving it even more than Curt was.  Maybe he liked pain?

            Regardless of how Arthur could be enjoying it, he clearly was, and seeing his beautiful face painted over with pleasure and producing moans of ecstasy greatly enhanced Curt’s pleasure.  It was over far too quickly; given his choice, Curt would have kept going like that for hours before finally climaxing.

            Even after he came, Curt didn’t want to pull out and roll off as if nothing had happened.  He wanted to just stay there.  Maybe he’d get hard again and they could fuck again without needing a new condom…

            “Um…”  Arthur’s tentative voice interrupted Curt’s train of thought.  “This isn’t actually that comfortable…”

            “Sorry.”  Curt pulled out—maybe a little too hastily, all things considered—and rolled off to one side.  “I was kind of thinking of waiting and doing it again.  Last condom, you know?”

            Arthur chuckled.  “You should ‘ave said so,” he said.  Then he sighed sadly.  “I miss the days when we didn’t need them.”

            “Yeah.”  No question there.  But Curt didn’t want to risk it.  Maybe it was pointless—maybe he was already infected—but the _humiliation_ that would be involved if he got AIDS was off the charts.  Everyone would just roll their eyes and say they always knew he’d die that way, between the drugs and sex with men.  He felt like it was his duty to piss off the whole world by defying their expectations and dying some way that was totally mundane and free of both AIDS and drugs.  Or maybe dying sensationally, like in a plane crash or by being murdered by psychotic government enforcers.  _That_ one actually stood a good chance of happening, unfortunately…  “Still needed ‘em with girls, though,” Curt said, trying to distract himself.

            Arthur shrugged.  “Never had much luck with women, myself.”

            “Yeah, I don’t buy that.”

            “Why not?”  He actually sounded like he meant it.  What the fuck was wrong with him?

            “If you have to ask, you’ll never know,” Curt laughed.

            “What?”

            “Forget it.  I’m tired.  Let’s get some sleep.”  Curt shut off the light and rolled over onto his side to put an end to the awkward conversation.  There was no point in making small talk.  Especially not in the middle of the night.

            After a few moments of silence, Arthur cuddled up behind him, sliding his arm around Curt in the darkness.  That was an odd sensation; Curt didn’t have much experience being the front spoon.  Didn’t feel bad, though.  Kind of nice, even.

            But he wasn’t stupid enough to allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security.  Every time was the last time.

            That had been his life for the last ten years.  It wasn’t going to change.  How could it?


	3. Chapter 3

            Curt wasn’t sure if he should expect to hear the doorbell that weekend or not.  That midweek visit had felt like…he didn’t even know what it had felt like.  If he just let go of everything he knew to be true, if he just looked at the face of the thing, it seemed like something beautiful, nearly perfect.  And sometimes he had trouble looking back on it and not feeling some soft, warm, weak glow inside him, some idiotic part of his brain that still thought it was possible for someone to love him.

            It was a small part.  The rest of Curt’s brain—the majority of it—knew that no one would ever fall in love with him again.  Maybe that no one ever had in the first place.  That just made Arthur’s behavior even more suspicious.  He’d said all that mushy stuff, without asking anything in return.  He hadn’t even asked Curt to act romantic back, let alone start spilling his secrets.  What was his game now?  Was he just trying to get Curt to drop his guard, or was this some kind of guilt play?  Well, Curt’s guard was never going to fall…but the guilt thing might work if he wasn’t careful.

            But that was why he didn’t know if Arthur would be coming back that weekend.  If he was trying to trick Curt into falling in love so that story would finally fall neatly into place, then he’d come back for sure:  he’d have to know that if he didn’t act like an ardent lover, there would be no chance of Curt being fooled into thinking he was one.  But if he was trying a guilt play, Arthur might stay away for a week or so, trying to force Curt to go look for him, or to call him despite the wiretap.  It all came down to how well Arthur understood his target, and maybe on how far he was willing to trust to his pretty face being enough to do the job.

            Shit.  How had that innocent kid turned into such a cold-hearted, merciless person?  Using sex to wheedle information out of an unwilling source.  It was just plain sick.  Realistically, even if he came back, Curt ought to turn him away.  But he wouldn’t.  He knew that.  He liked the sex too much to resist it.

            Even though Curt was kind of hoping that Arthur would stay away that weekend, he couldn’t help sitting there staring at the clock as the week drew to a close.  He knew by now when Arthur would arrive if he came straight to Curt’s place after work, and when he’d get there if he stopped off at his own apartment first to change clothes.  At least that made it easy to know when to stop watching the clock and get on with the evening.

            The earlier time came and went without a sound, except the doors of other people down the hall, and the tromp of feet upstairs.  If Arthur was coming, he’d gone home first.  That only made sense.  He usually did.

            But the second time passed, too, and the doorbell didn’t sound.  Curt couldn’t help letting out a disappointed sigh as ten minutes ticked away.  So it was going to be a guilt play, then.  And Curt was never going to risk contacting Arthur, so that meant the last time really had been the last time.

            It was for the best—Curt knew that—but it was still disappointing.

            Another twenty minutes later, and Curt was still sitting on the sofa, trying to decide if he should go out somewhere for dinner, go out somewhere to get drunk, or just get drunk in the comfort of his own living room.  The latter was probably the best idea, but he kind of liked the idea of going out and getting plastered in public.  Hadn’t done it for years.  Maybe this time he’d get arrested.  Or shot.  Getting shot seemed like a very real possibility.  Well, it was at least better than waiting to learn that he’d gotten infected with AIDS years before anyone even knew what it was.  But he still really didn’t want to die just yet.

            As Curt was wallowing in the lowest cycle of the spiral of his thoughts, the doorbell rang.  It was pretty late.  Probably someone at the wrong door.  A lost date looking for that hot chick next door, or a delivery guy who wrote down the wrong number.  A mean part of Curt wanted to just leave them out there to ring the bell until they realized their mistake, but somehow he couldn’t act on it.

            Besides, it might _not_ be someone at the wrong door.  Maybe Mandy had gotten dumped by her latest boyfriend, needed a shoulder to cry on, and figured Curt’s was always open.  Or maybe those fuckers wanted to silence him for good.  Anything was possible.

            Despite having come to that conclusion, Curt was still surprised when he opened the door.  It wasn’t anyone in the wrong place, it wasn’t Mandy, and it wasn’t even those douchebags who were protecting Brian’s secret.

            It was Arthur, his face tinging pink at the cheeks and the ears.  “Sorry,” he said, with a sheepish little smile.  “I’ve been distracted all day, and I kept ‘aving to re-write my article.  Didn’t get to leave until it was done.”

            Not sure how to react, Curt just nodded, and stepped aside to let him in.  He had really shown up.  Why?  Did he honestly think he could ‘love’ Curt enough to make him willing to ignore his own best interests?

            Curt had barely finished locking the door before Arthur was kissing him, pulling him into a surprisingly tight embrace.  At first, Curt couldn’t do anything but cooperate.  It felt so fucking good!  But there was no point in encouraging this.  It didn’t mean anything.  And Curt didn’t want to become the willing and happy little pawn in someone else’s game.

            So he pushed Arthur away, just enough to part their lips.  “ _Now_ what’s gotten into you?” he demanded.  Well, it wasn’t as much of a demand as he had meant it to be.  It came out more like laughter.

            Arthur laughed uncomfortably.  “Sorry,” he apologized again, kissing Curt’s lower lip as soon as the word was finished.  “I’ve just been—it’s all been bubblin’ over since I was last here.  Feels like I’ll burst…”  It didn’t seem like a full thought, but Arthur resumed kissing him anyway, and the passion in his lips and tongue really did seem completely uncontrollable.

            “You’re hopeless,” Curt sighed, as soon as he could pry his lips away again.

            “I’m not,” Arthur insisted.  “I’ve got lots of hopes.”

            Curt chuckled.  “You eaten yet?”

            Arthur shook his head.

            “Well, put your hopes on hold.  I’m too hungry to go without dinner.”  Despite his earlier plan to have a liquid dinner.

            The whole time Curt was ordering their dinner, Arthur stood right behind him, arms wrapped tightly around Curt’s body, lips and teeth playing with the ear that wasn’t blocked by the phone.  Those loose khakis Arthur was wearing weren’t doing shit to keep Curt from feeling his hard-on rubbing against Curt’s ass through his jeans.

            Even though he couldn’t be serious about Curt emotionally, he was clearly serious about having lots of really hot sex.  That, at least, was something Curt could relate to.  Respect, even.

            “We should have time before the food gets here,” Curt told him, turning around.

            “Time?” Arthur repeated, with a hopeful smile.

            “Yeah, for a little appetizer.  Maybe some cock…”

            Arthur kissed him so passionately that they almost had to do it right there in the kitchen.  Curt’s jeans were a little too tight to go walking around with a boner.

            But somehow they made it to the bedroom.  If anything, this 69 was even better than the first one had been.

            They hadn’t gotten tired of the idle, post-sex kissing by the time the doorbell rang.  Either something had taken a lot longer than usual on their end, or the food hadn’t taken as long to get there as usual.  Probably the latter.  Delivery places loved to rush when it meant pissing Curt off by interrupting his love life.  He had to put his jeans on in a fucking hurry and run to the door to get the food before the delivery guy could give up and go away.

            Arthur was putting on his shirt as he came into the dining room.  “No,” Curt told him.  “No shirts.”  Because he didn’t want to have to bother putting his own on, and it’d be weird if one of them was fully clothed and the other was half naked.

            Arthur stared at him for a moment, looking confused.  Then he shrugged, and took it back off again, draping it over the back of the sofa.

            Sometimes, they ate across Curt’s little dining room table, so they could look at each other as they ate, but tonight they were both sitting at one corner.  Looking wasn’t as easy, but touching was better than looking.  For the first half of the meal, every time Curt looked up at Arthur, his expression was almost giddy.  Reminded Curt painfully of the expression on his face as he had walked across that rooftop when they first met, almost as hesitant as he was horny.  If only things were as simple now as they had been ten years ago!

            But about halfway through the meal, Curt noticed that Arthur’s smile was fading.  By the time it had almost become a frown, he couldn’t keep quiet about it anymore.  “What’s wrong?”

            “I’m sorry,” Arthur sighed.  “It’s just…”  He stopped talking, and bit his lip hard enough that it looked painful.  “It’s not that I’m not happy with what we have.  I just wish we didn’t ‘ave to _hide_ it.”  His dark eyes slid shut.  “Maybe this will sound childish, but I used to dream about it.  About you comin’ back to find me—or me goin’ and findin’ you in America—and us ‘aving the same kind of relationship that…that anyone would have,” Arthur finished with a slight choking sound in his voice.  At least he had the decency not to bring up Brian directly.  Though it was pretty fucking obvious that was where the sentence had originally been going.  “I know things aren’t the way they were back in the ‘70s, but there are still places two men can go together in this city to—” Arthur started, opening his eyes to look at Curt again.

            “I know there are,” Curt assured him, a bit too briskly.  “And those motherfuckers know it, too.  Even if we showed up separately, they’d find out about it, and then we’d probably both be at the bottom of the Hudson before dawn.  If we were lucky.”

            “Why would they be willin’ to _kill_ just to keep one pointless secret?”

            Curt shrugged.  “I gave up trying to figure that out a long time ago.”

            “It’s just not right that we can’t ‘ave even one proper date!”

            “Sure we could,” Curt chuckled.  “As long as we left the country first.”

            Arthur looked at him with an expressionless face for a moment, then nodded with a long exhalation.  “So they _do_ work for the government.”

            “What?!  I didn’t say that!”

            Arthur shook his head, with a weak attempt at a laugh.  “I’ve been thinkin’ that was the case all along.  When I was interviewin’ her, Mandy said—”

            “I don’t want to fucking talk about this!” Curt snarled, cutting him off.

            A bit of a jump.  “I…I’m sorry.”  Arthur set a hand gently on Curt’s arm.  He resisted the urge to shake it away again.  “I wasn’t tryin’ to upset you.”

            Curt snorted out half a retort about his success at what he hadn’t been attempting, but he wasn’t sure any of it was actually intelligible.

            They finished their dinner in silence, then sat down on the sofa to watch television, because what the hell else were they going to do?  Talking wasn’t going to happen, and Curt was no longer in the mood for sex.

            At least he wasn’t until they’d been watching TV for a while.  It was late enough that one of the local stations was running one of those cheesy B-movies that just barely got away with flashing the occasional tit, and definitely liked playing up the corny sex scenes between the hunky leading man and the half dozen brainless bimbos he bedded across the course of the movie.

            Nothing made Curt hornier for a good man than a really badly done straight sex scene.

            And no matter what his profession had turned him into, once he got into bed, Arthur was _really_ good.

            Between the movie and the half bottle of bourbon that he drank _during_ the movie, Curt was completely over their little spat, and ready to get to some serious fucking.  Arthur still looked a bit let down, though.  That could make the sex less fun.  He’d have to do something about that.  But what?

            “I know!” he exclaimed as the inspiration struck him.

            “What?  What’re you talkin’ about?”

            “What to do now,” Curt said, flashing Arthur a grin.  “You just wait here.  I’m gonna go get something.”

            “Er…all right…”

            Curt hurried into the bedroom, and dragged the box out from under his bed.  Under the bed was where monsters lived, after all, so where better to keep all the stuff left over from Brian?  Most of it was old, half-forgotten gifts, but there were a few things of Brian’s that had somehow ended up with Curt’s crap when they split.  Most of that had been an accident, he was sure.

            But not this.  Curt pulled out the book and looked at its cover sadly.  _The Gay Kama Sutra_.  Brian had been so excited when a fan had sent it to him with a card suggesting that he should use it to make sure his sex life with Curt never lost its sparkle.  Curt had been surprised, at first, to find it in his suitcase.  It had taken him nearly a year to understand what that _really_ meant.  That had been Brian’s not-so-subtle way of telling him that the disaster their relationship had become was so awful that Curt had put him off men for good.

            Curt sat down on the side of the bed and flipped through the book.  Some of the pages were still dog-eared:  they had been Brian’s favorites.  He’d never been willing to try out a lot of the other positions, though; Brian was too delicate for them.  Arthur would probably be willing to do all of it.  That boy seemed to _enjoy_ a little discomfort with his sex.

            Getting up again, Curt kicked the box back under the bed, then hurried out to join Arthur on the sofa.  “We’re gonna try something new tonight,” he said, setting the book in Arthur’s hands.

            “Where…?”  A little smile was tugging up the corners of his lips, and his cheeks were turning red again.  God, he was sexy when he blushed.

            “It’s just something I had lying around,” Curt assured him.  “And we’re gonna go through there and find all the ways I haven’t fucked you yet.  Gonna tick ‘em off the list one by one until you’ll be _glad_ we can’t go out, ‘cause I can’t fuck you if we go out.”

            Arthur smiled broadly.  “I love you,” he said, his voice thick with desire, before kissing Curt passionately.

 

***

 

            By Sunday evening, Curt was almost tired of sex.  Almost.  And that brand new package of condoms was almost used up, too.

            It had definitely been a productive weekend.

            And yet, it left something within Curt feeling a bit hollow, too.  Why?  Was that because he understood the truth about Arthur’s motivations now?  No, that didn’t make sense.  He’d known that for months.  Why would it upset him now where it hadn’t before?  Unless his _own_ motivations were changing…and that was a recipe for total fucking disaster.

            No, he was just tired, that was all.  Too overwhelmed by a weekend of incredible sex to be able to think rationally.  Exhaustion was making him emotional, and that was making him nervous.  That was all.

            The question, of course, was just what _Arthur_ had to be so tired about.  They’d sat down on the couch to watch a movie after dinner, and within ten minutes Arthur had fallen asleep on Curt’s shoulder.  Even though he’d barely had to do anything all weekend but just lie—or kneel or sit or crouch—there and take it up the ass.  Curt was the one who’d been doing all the work, so he was the one who should have fallen asleep in front of the TV.

            Another question was just how long Arthur planned to be asleep, and what Curt was going to do if the movie ended before he woke up.  Somehow the notion of waking him felt a little too heartless.  Especially after all the pleasure Arthur had given him over the past two days.

            Fortunately, he didn’t have to deal with that dilemma, because a fierce gun battle erupted on the screen—despite that it hadn’t been that kind of movie up until then—and roused Arthur from his sleep.  After glancing around a bit, Arthur snuggled in closer to Curt, turning himself around on the sofa so that he could wrap his arms around Curt while still resting his head on Curt’s shoulder.

            “You’re not still tired?” Curt asked.  It didn’t seem possible.

            Arthur shook his head.  Sort of.  “Just don’t want this to end,” he said into Curt’s shoulder.  “I want us to stay like this forever.”

            “You know that can’t happen.”

            “I know.”  A choked noise, and Arthur tightened his grip on Curt.  “I still want it, though.  To be able to stay here all the time, make love every night instead of just on the weekends.  I guess I can’t help bein’ selfish.”

            Curt sighed, and stroked his hair with one hand.  “That’s not selfish,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he meant it.  Considering what was at stake here, it started to look a little selfish.  “You wanna go back to bed now?  Still a lot of positions left in the book that we haven’t tried yet.”

            “Can we stay like this a little longer?”

            “Uh…sure.  If that’s what you want.”  Didn’t make any fucking sense to Curt, but…it’d be nice to see how the movie ended.

            It hadn’t quite ended when the screeching started upstairs.  “Jesus, they’re at it again?” Curt sighed.  “Normally they don’t get in fights on the weekend.”  That was more of a Wednesday thing.

            “They do that a lot?” Arthur asked, turning his head slightly to let him look up at the ceiling, and the two piercing, high-pitched voices screaming at each other on the other side of it.  “What do they fight about?”

            “Beats the shit out of me.  Usual stuff, I guess.  Maybe one of ‘em never makes the bed,” Curt chuckled.  Being that they were both girls, it couldn’t be about the toilet seat.

            Arthur lifted his head to look into Curt’s face.  “Your upstairs neighbors are lesbians?”

            “Yeah.  They had some fucking crazy parties back when I first moved in, and I went up once to complain about the noise.”  Though he had ended up joining the party instead.  Which was, after all, more his usual thing.  “I still see them in the elevator from time to time.”

            “They get to live together like a normal couple,” Arthur sighed, lowering his head again, and holding Curt so tightly that it felt like he was afraid Curt was going to vanish like a puff of smoke.  “It’s just not right…”

            “Arthur…”  Even if Curt _wasn’t_ under surveillance by a bunch of shitheads who would sooner kill him than let him divulge one stupid secret, that didn’t mean he’d necessarily invite Arthur to move in with him.

            “Did they do this with everyone you’ve seen over the last four years?  Try to stop you gettin’ close and ‘aving a real relationship?”

            “There hasn’t really been anyone else.  Just some one-night stands.  I’m not good at the whole ‘relationship’ thing.”  The one time he’d tried it, he’d fucked up so badly that he’d permanently ruined both their lives.  Maybe that was why Curt had never really cared about being under constant surveillance:  it was _his_ fault that Brian’s life had come crashing down around his ears, and if that hadn’t happened, he’d never have needed to become Tommy Stone, so in the end, Curt deserved what he was getting.

            “I think you’re brilliant at it,” Arthur said, quietly, but right in his ear, his breath hot on Curt’s skin.  Way too fucking sexy.

            “You only think that because you haven’t experienced it,” Curt sighed.  Brian hadn’t left any questions behind on that score.  He’d made it very clear that being in a relationship with Curt was the worst thing in the history of the world.

            “I want to experience it,” Arthur insisted.  “The real thing, all the time, not just a few days a week.  To wake up every morning in your arms, and come home to you at the end of every day at work…”

            Curt felt something stir in his pants.  The idea of being able to fuck Arthur every night was definitely an appealing one.  “As long as we’re living in this country, that’s impossible.  You know that.”

            Silence followed for about a minute.  Maybe only thirty seconds.  “I wouldn’t mind movin’,” Arthur said quietly, speaking more into Curt’s neck than his ear.

            That just made Curt’s jeans feel all the tighter.  That didn’t sound like the kind of promise that’d be made just to chase a story.  It almost sounded like he really _meant_ it.  “Moving where?”

            “Anywhere.  As long as we could be together, I wouldn’t mind movin’ to bleeding Mars.”

            Curt laughed.  “That’d be an interesting commute.  Leaving the planet would be a pretty extreme solution.  Leaving the continent would be plenty.”  Canada might not cut it, though.  If those guys really did work for the government, they might be able to cross the border with their guns, and then it’d be lights out.

            “As long as you were comin’ with me, I wouldn’t mind goin’ back home.”

            God, why would he say something like that?  Curt’s cock was so hard by now that it was aching to get out of his jeans and into Arthur’s ass.  “Shut up,” Curt snarled, as he tried to open his fly and let off some of the pressure.

            “Did I say something wrong?” Arthur asked, looking into his eyes with a look almost of panic in his own.

            “Yes, you made me completely fucking horny, you selfish little asshole!” Curt snapped.  “Now I won’t know how the movie ends, ‘cause if I don’t fuck you in the next two minutes, I’m gonna lose it!”

            Arthur’s look of worry turned into a smile of delight for a moment or two, then he kissed Curt passionately.  “If you’re that worried about the telly, I could just give you a blowjob right here.”

            “No.  Bedroom.  _Now_.”

            Instead of looking hurt at Curt’s commanding tone, Arthur let out a delighted grin before obediently getting up and heading down the hall.  Curt, of course, was following right on his heels.  He suddenly _needed_ this with a desperation that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.  Seemed more than a little odd, considering how many times they’d already fucked in the last two days, but what could he do about it?

            They stripped off their clothes with even more haste than usual, though with far fewer kisses.  Curt was way past the point where kissing was a good idea.  He needed to get right to the fucking.  That was why he took the book out of Arthur’s hands, too.  This was no time to experiment with a new position.  “Face to face,” he said.  He wanted to see those beautiful looks of pleasure spreading across Arthur’s face for this.  He _needed_ to see that, somehow.

            That idea seemed to please Arthur, and he was soon lying on his back, smiling up at Curt as he dealt with the condom and the lubricant.

            Slipping inside felt wonderful, but it was less instantly fulfilling than Curt had been expecting.  From the look on his face, it was plenty good enough for Arthur, but Curt wasn’t getting what he needed yet.  “Did you really mean that?” he asked after about a minute, his voice little more than a grunt.

            “Mean what?”

            “That you want us to run away to England together,” Curt clarified, pushing in extra deep, prompting Arthur to let out a moan of pleasure.

            “If it meant we’d be able to live together as proper lovers, I’d do anything,” Arthur assured him.  “I promise.”

            Curt hadn’t ever thought of himself as the sort who could come for words, but those words got him surprisingly close.  To the point that he decided he’d better not talk again until they were done fucking, or they’d be done too fast.  Even as it was, he was having to work at it to keep it from being over too quickly.

            Once it finally _was_ over, Curt didn’t pull out.  He just stayed where he was, looking down at the satisfied expression on Arthur’s face.  “I’m gonna stay like this until I get hard again,” he said, to prevent a repeat of last time.  “Keep from wasting a condom.”

            “All right,” Arthur said, with an almost roguish grin.  Did he really enjoy taking Curt’s cock that much?  “Did you want to talk until then?”

            Curt nodded.  This was going to plague him until he could figure out what was going on.  What he should think.  And feel.  “How serious are you about what we were just talking about?”

            Arthur’s smile became a little pained.  “Curt, I love you,” he said, his voice thick and tender.  “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  If we ‘ave to cross an ocean to do it, that’s a small price to pay for bein’ together.”

            “You’d have to quit your job,” Curt pointed out.  That alone ought to completely put the idea out of Arthur’s head.  There’d be no purpose in getting that close to Curt if Arthur wasn’t a reporter anymore.

            “I don’t care about my job.”  Bullshit.

            “I never really managed to save up much money,” Curt said, shaking his head.  “I still get some payments from the sales of my records, but it’s not really enough for _me_ to live on, much less to support anyone else.”  That had been his excuse for the last several years, whenever anyone asked him why he wasn’t looking for a ‘nice girl’ to settle down with.  To ‘settle down’ would require him to get a regular job, and how could he ever do that?  He used to be Curt Wild, bad boy of rock and roll.  How could he become some random schmuck with an ordinary job?

            “I could get a new job,” Arthur assured him.  “There’s plenty of papers in London to write for.”  Of course.  The story would still be a story in England.  Maybe it’d be _more_ of a story there.  Brian had never been as popular in America, after all.

            But in England there weren’t armed goons looking to stop the story from going out.  And there weren’t fucking military police on every street corner with assault rifles.

            Despite how stupid it was, Curt found himself kind of wanting to go along with this crazy idea.  If he resisted telling the tale long enough, he might be able to drag out their ‘relationship’ long enough to make it worth the trouble of moving halfway across the world.  After all, Arthur wouldn’t be able to dump him until after he got his story, and if Curt kept on not telling what little he knew, he might not be able to write the story for months, maybe years.

            The idea of fucking Arthur every night for years on end was already making Curt horny again.

            “Curt?”  Arthur’s voice dragged Curt out of his reverie.

            “You really want to do it?”

            “Yes.  More than anything.”

            Curt bit his lips together, fighting to keep them from saying the words, from admitting that he wanted it, too, that he was desperate to share a space with Arthur, to fuck him every night and every morning and—no, this was just going to get him hard and then they’d start fucking and not finish talking.  “You really think you’d be able to get a new job back in London?”

            “If you’d really be willin’ to come with me, I’ll start sendin’ out my résumé first thing in the morning,” Arthur said, his voice little more than a breathy moan.

            Curt should have been disgusted that Arthur was willing to go that far for a single scoop, but all he could think of was the myriad tempting pleasures of his ass and that sweet mouth with its talented tongue.  “Do it,” he grunted, as he felt his cock stiffening again.

            This pleasure was too much to give up, no matter the cost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL, when I wrote that line about "under the bed was where the monsters lived," I had no idea I would later write an AU where Curt and Brian actually were monsters living under Arthur's bed. :P
> 
> (Yup, this note was largely a shameless self-plug. Because I'm fond of that story and no one seems interested in reading it...)


	4. Chapter 4

            As soon as he got to work, Arthur left his satchel at his desk, then went straight to Lou’s office.  This was going to be awkward enough as it was, without putting it off and making it even more uncomfortable.

            Lou chuckled as Arthur entered the office.  “You look like you had a good weekend,” he commented.

            Arthur was probably blushing.  “One of the best of my life,” he agreed.  If not outright the best.

            “Let me guess:  you’re asking for time off because wedding bells will soon be ringing?”  Even though Lou often sounded like he was joking, this particular question was almost more laughed than spoken.

            If only _that_ could happen!  “Not exactly.”  Arthur sighed.  This was already really uncomfortable.  “Actually…ah…I was hopin’ you’d be willin’ to write me a letter of recommendation…”

            “You don’t like working here anymore?”

            “That’s not it,” Arthur assured him.  “It’s just…well…to avoid a, um, separation, I ‘ave to—”  Arthur stopped, frowning.  How was he supposed to explain without using pronouns?  He didn’t want to lie and claim it was a woman he was quitting over…

            Lou shook his head, and looked at his watch.  “Will it make this faster if I point out that you’re not really fooling anyone?”

            “What?”  Arthur looked at Lou with panic.  He had so many secrets, and it was so terrifying to think that _any_ of them might be public knowledge…

            “I think anyone who had any doubts lost them after the pool party last summer.”  Lou smiled warmly.  “You didn’t bat an eye at Lionel’s teenage daughters in their bikinis, but kept sneaking glances at that ex-bodybuilder from layout.”

            Arthur’s whole face felt hot.  He had thought he’d been really subtle about that!  He tried to put his shame aside, but it still felt like it was consuming him.  “Well…”  A long, slow exhalation as he tried to recollect himself.  “I guess that does make it easier,” he admitted.  “He’s—uh, my partner, I guess, he’s been offered a job in London, and I—I don’t want us to be parted, so…I need to start lookin’ for a job back home…”

            “I see.”  Lou sighed, sitting down at his desk.  “We’ll all be sorry to see you go, but I won’t try to intervene in your private life.”  He shuffled some papers for a moment, then smiled up at Arthur.  “But maybe you’d still write us some stories from England from time to time?”

            “Sure.”  Who’d ever refuse extra money coming in?

            Lou nodded, and the room fell silent long enough that Arthur began wondering if he should excuse himself and get to work.  He hadn’t finished his story yet, after all, and it was due this afternoon.   “Well?”  Lou eventually said, breaking the silence.  “What are you standing around here for?  Unless you’ve already finished your article?”

            “No, I—I’ll get right on it,” Arthur assured him, before hurrying out of the office.

            Well, that couldn’t have gotten much more embarrassing.  But if Lou was really going to write him a letter of recommendation, that was all that mattered.  It was humiliating that he had figured out that Arthur was gay, but it didn’t matter, because as soon as Arthur left, he’d never see Lou—or anyone else from the _Herald_ —ever again.  Let them all think whatever they wanted about him.  It wouldn’t matter.  As long as he had Curt, that was all that mattered.

            Though there was, of course, the uncomfortable question of if he really did have Curt.

            Something about the haste of their decision to run away together was eating at Arthur.  It was everything he had dreamed about for years, so he should have been happy about it.  But Curt had gone almost instantly from resisting even the slightest hint of adding romance to their sex to being willing to move across the world together?  It didn’t add up.  Something was wrong.

            Unfortunately, there were so many things that might be going wrong that it was hard to pin down exactly which one it might have been.  No, it wasn’t that it was hard.  It was that Arthur didn’t want to think about it.  He didn’t want to dignify all the possible problems by putting words to them.  They’d haunt him forever if he did that.  Besides, figuring out what Curt was really thinking wasn’t going to change anything.  If he didn’t feel the same way as Arthur—and he certainly didn’t—then knowing in advance how and why he was going to break it off wasn’t going to lessen the pain any.  In fact, the dreadful anticipation would probably make it worse, so Arthur did his best to shove all such thoughts out of his head.

            He had plenty else to worry about right now, in any case.  There was yet another story about the election to write, and when that was over, he had to polish up his résumé and pick out the best of his past stories to send along with it.  And _then_ he’d have to go to the library and research London papers to see where he might fit in.  After all, the last time he’d been in London, he hadn’t been much interested in such things.

 

***

 

            Despite that he had sent off all his letters to the papers back home by airmail, it was still three weeks before Arthur started getting any responses.  And all of those responses were tentative, polite refusals, many of them carefully phrased to imply that they might hire him if he wasn’t currently on the other side of the Atlantic.

            Meanwhile, they hadn’t once discussed their plans.  Arthur was reluctant to bring the subject up, for fear of Curt saying he’d changed his mind.  Especially because if Curt really did want them to move to London together, he certainly wasn’t acting like it.  He seemed quite satisfied to keep things going as they were:  beautiful weekends full of sex, and nothing else.  That was surely all he wanted from their relationship.  If it could even be _called_ a relationship.

            By the time he got the last paper’s response, Arthur didn’t even know if there was a point to opening the envelope.  It would just be another rejection.  Maybe the Committee for Cultural Renewal—or whoever was working so hard at protecting Tommy Stone’s secret—had quietly informed all those London papers that hiring Arthur would be a terrible mistake.

            That actually seemed quite likely, now that he thought about it.  If they wanted to keep him from publishing the story of what had become of Brian Slade, they could stop him easily, so long as he was in the United States.  But as soon as he went back home, he’d be out of their grasp.  They knew that, and so they were pulling strings to keep him from leaving the country.  Of course they were.  It had been foolish of him to think anything else would happen.

            So was there even any point in opening the envelope?  It would save time, after all, to chuck the thing in the bin without bothering.  Opened or not, it would be the same rejection letter either way.

            But that would be like giving up on any chance of getting a real relationship with Curt.

            Not that he really had any hopes of a real relationship anyway.  That wasn’t what Curt wanted.  He just wanted cheap sex, and he was already getting that.  He had only agreed to the whole idiotic plan because he’d known it would never work.  Arthur was a fool not to have realised that all along.

            Sighing, he slid the envelope into his satchel, then hurried downstairs to his flat to change his clothes.  Why take on all the responsibilities himself?  Let _Curt_ decide to open the letter or pitch it away.  If nothing else, it should be illuminating to see how he handled the situation.

            Of course, by the time he arrived at Curt’s flat, Arthur had all but forgotten about the letter.  It was a foregone conclusion what it said, and it was hard to keep such depressing ideas in mind when faced with a beautiful night in Curt’s bed.  He didn’t remember about the letter until the next morning at breakfast, in fact, when Curt asked why he had brought his ‘purse’ with him.

            After the usual irritated denial of the idea that he was carrying a purse, Arthur took the envelope out of the satchel.  “This came in the post yesterday,” he explained.  “It’s the last of the rejection letters.”

            “Rejection letters?”  Curt looked at him with a blank expression.  “You never said anything about any rejections.”

            Arthur sighed.  “Didn’t see the point of it.”  He put the letter down again on top of his satchel.

            Curt picked up the envelope, and turned it over.  “You haven’t opened it.  How do you know it’s a rejection?”

            “All the others ‘ave been, so why wouldn’t it be?  Besides…I think…they’re tryin’ to keep me from leavin’ the country where they won’t be able to stop me from writin’ that story.”

            Curt’s forehead—what of it Arthur could see through his hair—crinkled up.  “But you don’t even have a story.  You have a…a conclusion.  You’d need more than that.”

            “They don’t know that, do they?  They know I figured it out.  That’s all they need, isn’t it?”  He sighed.  “I’m probably lucky they’ve never come after me.”  Unless, by some miracle, they hadn’t figured out that he was the one who had shouted that question at Tommy after the concert.  But if they were that dim, getting around them wouldn’t be the problem that it was.

            “I don’t think they’d be able to force foreign papers not to hire you,” Curt insisted.  “You’re just being paranoid.”

            “All the rejections were suitably vague, like they didn’t want to admit their real reasons for refusin’ me.”  Arthur resisted the urge to ask why Curt was arguing, since this was the result he actually wanted, where nothing changed, and their relations remained stalled at periodic sex.

            Curt just shrugged, and started using a table knife to open the envelope.  Once it had been raggedly cut open, he slid out the paper inside, and started reading from it.  “Dear Mr. Stuart,” the letter started, though why Curt had bothered to read _that_ part was a mystery to Arthur.  How in the world else was it going to start?  ‘Hello, loser’?  “We have for some time been in need of an analyst capable of explaining to our readers the mysteries of foreign politics.  It is not a full-time position, as foreign politics do not intrude upon our readers’ affairs on a daily basis, but it is one that is appropriately compensated.  Given your experience with the baffling world of American politics, we believe you might excel in this position.  If you would have interest in taking on this role, please call our office at your earliest convenience to discuss the details.”

            Stunned, Arthur took the letter out of Curt’s hands and looked it over.  Curt hadn’t been making anything up:  they were really offering him a job.  Not an ideal job, by any stretch of the imagination, but one that was safely in London and away from Tommy Stone’s protectors.  As he sat there staring at the letter, Arthur felt Curt’s hand slipping from his knee up along his thigh.

            “Sounds like we need to go to the bedroom and celebrate, right?” Curt asked, his voice already husky with desire.

            All Arthur could do was nod before putting the letter down and kissing Curt passionately.

 

***

 

            The three weeks after Arthur received the job offer were some of the most hectic of his life.  The first order of business, naturally, had been to contact the London paper and make sure that the offer was indeed for a position in London, and not merely a contract job to remain in New York and write about American politics.  Once that happy fact had been established, Arthur had to give in his two weeks’ notice at the _Herald_ , and begin the chaotic process of preparing to move back across the Atlantic.

            He’d only tied up about half his affairs by his final day working at the _Herald_.  At the end of the day, Lou called a meeting of everyone to explain that Arthur was going back to England—Lou was kind enough to lie and say that Arthur was following his girlfriend, so either not _everyone_ had figured out the truth, or they all expected a maintenance of the lie for appearance’s sake—and that they should give him one last show of American hospitality before he left.  Which, of course, meant getting him completely fall-down drunk.  Apparently, Americans didn’t know how to be hospitable while sober.

            The resultant hangover didn’t actually delay Arthur’s preparations any, however, because he had been _just_ sober enough to manage to get to Curt’s place, so he spent his recovery time in Curt’s bed, enjoying a much more pleasant form of hospitality.  But that was when Curt broke the anticipated bad news to him:  “If I start getting ready to leave the country, too, they’re going to get suspicious,” he had explained.  “I can’t start preparing until you’re already gone, or they’ll stop me—maybe both of us.”  Because he’d still been hung-over, Arthur had acted as if that was completely unexpected and utterly intolerable.

            In truth, he had already known Curt would make that excuse.  Because it was easier to say that than to say “I’m not going with you.”  But that was what Curt meant.  Of course it was.  He had no intention of returning to England, now or probably ever.

            Part of Arthur wanted to call back the paper in London and tell them he’d changed his mind.  To call Lou and beg for his old job back, even if he had to accept a reduced salary.  The whole idea of moving back to England had been to avoid being parted from Curt, not to cause a permanent separation.

            But if that separation was what Curt wanted, how could Arthur refuse to cooperate with it?  He had to do what Curt wanted.

            The night before he was to leave the country, Arthur turned up at Curt’s flat for the last time.  His belongings were all packed in his own flat, ready for the voyage ahead.  But he needed one more night with Curt before it was all over, or he was going to lose his mind.

            Curt had ordered a fancy dinner, and it was waiting on the table by the time Arthur got there.  “So, have you already made arrangements to get a place in London?” Curt asked as they ate.

            Arthur shook his head.  “I tried, but it wasn’t workin’ out.  Shouldn’t be too difficult findin’ a flat, as long as it doesn’t ‘ave to be anything special.”

            “Four walls, a roof, a working toilet, and room for a bed.  That’s all an apartment really needs.”

            “Bit more than that,” Arthur sighed.  There were countless considerations that had to go into it, but…maybe at the core of it, Curt was right.  “The problem will be payin’ for it.  I’ll be gettin’ paid even less than I was at the _‘Erald_ , and livin’ in London’s not cheap.”

            “Oh, yeah, that reminds me!”  Curt got up and headed into the living room, returning moments later with an envelope.  “I’ve been putting together some cash,” he said, sitting down again.  “It’s hard to get any significant amount without those guys noticing and thinking I’m up to something, but I managed to scrape together about $600.  That should help with the deposit on the apartment.”

            “Curt…”  Arthur accepted the envelope, his mind racing.  Was Curt actually trying to help him, or was he so desperate to be rid of Arthur that he was willing to pay hundreds of dollars to send him packing?  “This should make things a lot easier,” he agreed, doing his best to keep his voice level.  No point in letting Curt understand that Arthur realised what was really going on.  That would just make their last night together get ugly, instead of being beautiful, as it should be.

            After dinner, they naturally retired to the bedroom to make love for the last time.

            “Tell me how you want it,” Curt said, smiling at Arthur as if he actually cared about him.  “We’ll do whatever you want.”

            “I want you to give it to me as hard as you can,” Arthur replied without hesitation.  “So I can still feel it for weeks.  I want to still feel you inside me every minute until we see each other again.”

            Curt grinned.  “I can do that.”

            As they were undressing each other, they kissed with a rare intensity.  In fact, the kissing felt so wonderful that Arthur was reluctant to break it off in favour of the hard, heavy sex that was supposed to come next.  But soon enough Curt was insisting, telling him to “Get in position for the fucking of a lifetime.”

            Yes, the fucking of a lifetime.  Because after having had so many beautiful nights with Curt, how could Arthur ever accept anyone else as a lover?  Once Curt was out of his life, he’d probably never have sex again.

 

***

 

            Before Arthur left in the morning, he gave Curt the telephone number of his new employer in London.  “This is the general desk; I won’t ‘ave my own phone there.  But you can call it to get in touch with me.”

            Curt nodded, and gave him a quick kiss.  “I’ll let you know as soon as I’m ready to come join you.”  On a cold day in Hell, no doubt.  “Can’t really call more than once, though.  It’ll have to be from a pay phone, and that’s fucking expensive for international calls.”

            Arthur nodded.  “I…I guess I should go now…”  He really didn’t want to be leaving.  Why had he ever come up with something so stupid?  He should have just accepted a lifetime of wonderful, meaningless sex instead of being so foolhardy as to think Curt would ever be willing to take him seriously.  “My plane’s leavin’ about one, and there’s still a few things I ‘ave to do first…”

            “I wish I could go with you to the airport,” Curt sighed.  “But if we’re seen in public together, they’ll never let me leave the country.  Maybe they’d even manage to stop you leaving, too.”

            Arthur nodded.  That felt more like a hollow excuse today than it had any other day in their strange, uneven relationship.  “I love you,” he said, fighting not to cry.  He had decided weeks ago that those had to be the last words he’d say to Curt.  So there couldn’t be any confusion.

            “Calm down,” Curt said, smiling at him gently as he wiped away a tear Arthur hadn’t realised he had shed.  “It’s just a few weeks.  Then it’ll all be over.”

            They kissed several times, then Arthur had no choice but to walk out of that flat forever.

 

***

 

            By the time he had been back in London for two weeks, Arthur’s existence was slowly starting to form up into something that more or less resembled a life.  It was completely unfurnished, but he had a flat to live in, and his new neighbours seemed nice.  His co-workers were friendly enough, and his new boss seemed reasonable.

            Despite urgings from his neighbours and co-workers, however, he had made no attempts to contact any of his old friends in London.  It wouldn’t be hard to find them—he’d seen an article just days after his arrival that mentioned the Flaming Creatures had recently gotten back together and were performing weekly at a popular nightclub—but he just couldn’t face the idea of seeing anyone who really _knew_ him.  He could put on a front of being normal and well-adjusted for his neighbours and co-workers because they had no idea what he’d just lost.  But if he saw the Creatures again—or any of his other friends from the glam days—Arthur would end up spilling all his woes about having had to leave the man he loved behind in New York.

            There was no doubt in Arthur’s mind that Curt wouldn’t be joining him in London.

            Curt had said himself that he wasn’t good with relationships.  It was clear now that one of the things he was especially bad at was breaking them off.  The end of his emotional attachment to someone didn’t necessarily signal the end of his sexual desire for them, so if Curt was still able to see an ex, he might still want to sleep with them.  So he needed to put distance between himself and whoever he was breaking up with.

            When Curt and Brian broke up, Curt got on a plane for Germany the next morning.

            And now he had manipulated Arthur into getting on a plane back to London, putting an entire ocean between them.  He must have been _really_ desperate to get rid of Arthur.  That was unsurprising, given everything, but knowing it still hurt.

            Realistically, what Arthur probably needed was to find someone else right away.  Force himself to forget.  But he couldn’t do that.  He didn’t think he’d ever be able to do that.  Even when Curt had been a one-night miracle, a blessing that fell from the sky like a shooting star, it had been almost impossible to relegate him to a distant memory, even after a decade.  After they had shared so many more nights together, how was Arthur supposed to forget about him for even a minute?

            No, the only thing available to Arthur now was a “passionate celibacy.”

            That and a lot of cold showers.  
            He had just taken a cold shower, in fact, before he went in to work on Monday morning.  Weekends were particularly hard on him, after all.

            His new work was disturbingly simple:  he took dozens of Reuters and Associated Press stories and condensed them into a little column or two of text, explaining all the myriad differences between the American and British political systems in the process.  It was easy work—easy enough, in fact, that he felt like he was actually being overpaid, despite that his salary wasn’t anywhere near enough money to live on—but he drew no satisfaction from it whatsoever, and was constantly asking his new boss for the chance to add some actual journalism to Arthur’s workload.  But the paper already had enough people reporting on local news, and Arthur’s hopes of a more satisfying employment were continually being dashed.

            Which was why he’d taken to having his lunches at the nearest pub, accompanied by a pint or two.  Not enough to hamper his mental processes, but just enough to drown out at least a _few_ of his problems, even if only temporarily.

            On his return from lunch, Arthur was surprised to see the receptionist flagging him down.  “Is something wrong?” he asked her.

            “You’ve got a message,” she told him.  “Some American called for you while you were at lunch.”

            “Really?”  Arthur refused to let himself get his hopes up.  It wasn’t Curt.  Curt had no intention of ever seeing him again.  They were over.  “Who?”

            “He wouldn’t leave his name,” the receptionist said, fishing out a piece of paper from a small stack.  “Sounded quite upset that you weren’t available to be talked to directly.  Rude fellow, even for an American.”

            “What did he want?”

            “Whoever he is, he’s flying in first thing tomorrow, and expects you to meet his plane,” she said, handing him the paper, on which was written the time and number of a flight from New York.  “Guess it’s lucky you’re not on tomorrow.”

            Arthur nodded, looking at the paper and trying to remain calm.  It couldn’t be Curt.  That was insane.  If it was Curt, he’d have told the woman his name in order to ensure that the message was properly delivered.  It was more likely one of those armed men, having decided that Arthur was too dangerous to be allowed to live…

            “So, who is he?” the receptionist asked, after what had probably been a long silence.

            “I’m not sure,” Arthur admitted.  “I…a good friend of mine had mentioned the possibility of comin’ over to see me, but…well, hopefully it’s him…”

            “Who else could it be?”

            Arthur shrugged and thanked the woman for giving him the message.  What else could he do?  Even if he’d had an answer, it would have sounded like crazed paranoia.  The last thing he needed was to get a reputation for being mad.  He hadn’t had this job long enough to already be ruining it.

 

***

 

            Arthur couldn’t help being nervous as the plane landed at Heathrow.  Who was on board?  What did they want from him?

            As much as he wished it would be Curt, he knew it wasn’t.

            It would be one of those men who were protecting Tommy Stone.  And he’d arrive with a diplomatic passport, so he could shoot Arthur in the face and get away with it.  Or maybe he’d be more subtle than that, and he’d trick Arthur into returning to America where he’d be defenseless.

            But Arthur was going to do his best to avoid either of those unpleasant outcomes.  He was waiting a bit out of sight, half-hidden, and certainly wasn’t going to do anything to announce his presence to any mysterious men, armed or no.  In fact, he was only there at all because his teenage self was hiding inside him somewhere, still convinced that Curt would be true to his word and come for him.

            When the last passenger was disgorged from the plane and Curt wasn’t there, then his teenage self would finally be dead, and maybe Arthur would be able to live the same normal, boring life as everyone else.  Or at least a lonelier version of it.

            The number of passengers emerging from Customs had begun to slow to a trickle, and yet there was no sign of anyone looking for Arthur.  Everyone had either been met by someone else, or left on their own, clearly not expecting anyone to meet them.

            The flow of passengers stopped altogether as a slight ruckus began in the Customs office.  Arthur couldn’t help joining the other curious people moving closer to find out what was going on.  Had Tommy Stone’s protector brought his gun on board the plane?  That would surely go badly for him if he did…

            Whatever the noise inside the office was, it died down before it got loud enough for anyone to figure out what was going on, and the crowd began to disperse.  Arthur was only starting to think of returning to his hiding place when the next passenger emerged from Customs.

            Blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, yet with some still falling limply in front of that handsome face.  A big grin formed on those lips.

            “Curt!”  Arthur ran over to him, amazed.  He had actually come?  Why?

            They clasped each other awkwardly, hands on arms and shoulders only.  Too many people around.  As much as Arthur wanted to start kissing Curt passionately, he didn’t dare.  Even if they weren’t in America anymore, this still wasn’t a world that would allow that.  Thatcher’s Britain wasn’t _that_ much better than Reynolds’ America.

            “God, it feels like it’s been fucking forever,” Curt said, his eyes boring right into Arthur.  “I’ve missed you.”

            “I missed you, too,” Arthur assured him.  “Every minute.”

            “I hope you brought a big car,” Curt went on, letting go of Arthur entirely.  “I’ve got way too much luggage.”

            “I don’t drive,” Arthur chuckled.  “We’ll hire a taxi.  Don’t worry about that.”

            Curt nodded, and they started towards the baggage claim.  “Trying to pack up all my shit was exhausting.  I’m looking forward to putting my feet up on the couch and watching some TV to unwind.”

            “Um…”

            “What?”

            “I, er, don’t have one,” Arthur admitted.

            “One what?”

            “A couch.  Or a television.”

            “Seriously?”  Curt didn’t sound like he could believe it.

            “Findin’ a flat at all was even more expensive than I was expectin’,” Arthur sighed.  “Everything I had went to the deposit.  There’s no furniture.  Apart from a folding table and chair one of my neighbours loaned me until I could get paid and buy some real furniture.”

            “Shit.  There’s at least a bed, right?”

            “No.”

            “Where the fuck have you been sleeping?!” Curt asked, in much too loud a voice.

            “There’s a mattress,” Arthur assured him.  “It’s just right out on the floor.”

            Curt sighed.  “Well, the mattress is the important part,” he said, shaking his head.  “It was definitely gonna hurt you if I spent all night fucking you right on the floor,” he added, in a much more quiet voice.

            “That’s a pain I’d ‘ave been willing to live with.”

            Curt grinned at him for a moment, then shook his head.  “We’ll have to go buy some furniture tomorrow,” he announced.  “I don’t want to live like a broke college student if I don’t have to.”

            Arthur thought of asking Curt if he even _went_ to college, but he knew the answer was ‘no,’ so it didn’t seem worthwhile.

            “How much does furniture cost in London, anyway?”

            Arthur chuckled.  “Seein’ as I’m broke, I hadn’t looked yet.  But I’d think it costs either the same as in New York, or a little more.”  Most everything else did, after all.

            Curt scowled.  “Just a sofa and a TV, then,” he sighed.

            “What happened to _your_ furniture?”  If Curt really had decided to move, then he should have had a whole flat’s worth of it!

            “Mandy’s selling it for me,” Curt said.  “Gonna bring the money sometime next week.”

            “Why sell it?”

            “It’s not like it was anything special.  Getting it sent over here would cost way more than it was worth.”  Curt shook his head.  “Anyway, I don’t have _that_ much money to deal with until she gets here.  So just the essentials until then.”

            Arthur nodded.  “If the furniture’s nothing special, is sellin’ it really likely to raise enough money to do any good?”  He rather doubted Curt’s reputation still had enough clout with fans for his things to pull in more money just because they had belonged to him.

            “Probably not,” Curt admitted.  “But without those fuckers breathing down my neck, I can start performing again.  Bring in some fresh money.”

            Arthur smiled widely.  Getting to see Curt on stage again would be almost as perfect as getting to share his bed again!  “That sounds wonderful,” he agreed.


	5. Chapter 5

            There was something about waking up on the floor that was deeply unsettling.  Curt couldn’t say exactly _what_ , though.  Maybe it was faded old memories of all the times he’d slept on the floor in the past, whether in the poverty of his teen years or during the worst periods of his addictions.

            Still, it was a little less horrible this way, with a mattress underneath his body, and Arthur in his arms.  Less horrible, but still intolerable.  They’d have to start with a bed, and then get a sofa and TV if there was enough money left over.

            It was a nice apartment, though.  Or it would be once it had some stuff in it.  Two bedrooms, lots of light, high enough off the street that they weren’t being hounded by the sound of car engines and screaming kids, big spacious kitchen with new appliances.  The only possible problem Curt could see was that there was no air-conditioner.  Sure, you didn’t normally need one in London, but if there was any truth to that global warming stuff, then they’d need one sooner or later.  But maybe that was far enough in the future that they wouldn’t be living in this little apartment anymore anyway.  After all, Curt still wasn’t sure just how on the level Arthur was being with him, or how long this was going to last.

            Even if it didn’t last, just getting out from under the thumb of those guys—whoever they were—was so liberating that Curt was feeling a thousand times better already.  Even if things didn’t work out with Arthur, it was worth it to get away from America for a few years.  He’d told Mandy that he’d be gone at least until 1989, unless there was a miracle and Reynolds didn’t win re-election.  She had laughed at that, but it wasn’t a joke.  And she probably knew that.

            It’d be better if things _would_ work out with Arthur, though.  Maybe it was naïve of him, but Curt kind of wanted to hold on for once.  They’d gone straight to bed—mattress—as soon as they got into the apartment yesterday morning, and the sex had been amazing.  It had been as though Curt hadn’t gotten laid in years, it was so good.  And the whole time, Arthur had been repeatedly moaning “I love you,” over and over again, as if he couldn’t say anything else.  That should have been annoying, and yet it had actually been a real turn-on.  People weren’t exactly lining up to fall in love with Curt these days.

            Only after they’d made love had they started the tremendous hassle of unpacking all of Curt’s shit.  Of course, without any furniture, there hadn’t been anyplace to put most of it, so it was still in suitcases, stored in the other bedroom, but at least they’d hung up all his clothes in the walk-in closet, which Arthur insisted was larger than his ‘flat’ in New York had been.  By the time they’d finished with that, they were both exhausted, and spent a while in the shower to relax.  Then Arthur had called out to have some food delivered—thankfully, London was almost as handy on that score as New York—and they had spent a long time catching up on everything they had missed in each others’ lives in the past two weeks.  Curt couldn’t remember the last time anyone had actually cared what he did outside of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and he wasn’t sure he had ever cared what was going on in someone else’s life at all.  That seemed pretty fucking pathetic, now that he thought about it.  Maybe it would be good for him to turn a little domestic.  Have a nice, tame, sedate relationship for once.  He’d still scandalize the prudes, since the relationship was with a man, but…yeah, it might be nice.  It might be exactly what he needed.  But there was always the worry that Arthur wouldn’t want to keep going after he finally got that story.  Though it didn’t sound like his new paper would want to print it even if he got it.  There were always music magazines willing to print a freelance article, though.  Curt really wanted to trust Arthur, but he knew that he’d just get burned if he let his guard down entirely…

            As if he knew what Curt was thinking, Arthur rolled over in his arms, snuggling in closer against Curt’s chest.

            “Morning,” Curt said, though he wasn’t honestly sure if it _was_ morning.  Jet lag was a bitch.

            Arthur opened his eyes and smiled at Curt warmly.  “Good morning,” he agreed.  “Did you sleep well?”

            “With someone so pretty to keep me company, how could I not?” Curt replied, stroking Arthur’s chin gently.  Needed shaving.  Arthur was definitely not as pretty with stubble.  Though Curt realized he probably didn’t look any great sight at the moment, either.

            “Are you ready to get up?”

            “What if I said I’d rather fuck you again?” Curt asked.  Sure, they’d already had sex twice since he got here, but two weeks without had left him surprisingly horny.

            Arthur grinned widely.  “Sounds good to me,” he agreed.  “I don’t ‘ave to work today, so we can take all the time we want.”

            Sadly, Curt was too horny to take quite as long as he’d have liked, but it was pretty fantastic sex anyway.  Followed by a brief nap and a long shower, of course, leaving Curt feeling utterly rested and ready to face the morning.  Unfortunately, by then it was already noon.

            “There’s a nice pub not far from here,” Arthur was telling him as they got ready to go out.  “We can ‘ave lunch there, and then figure out where to look for cheap furniture.  Maybe someone at the pub could even give us some advice.”

            Curt nodded, then laughed slightly.  “No, I’ve got a better idea.  About the advice.  Wait a sec.  Where’s the phone?”

            Arthur pointed out the phone, which was hanging on the wall in the kitchen.  Curt got out his wallet, and fished out the phone number he had stashed in it.  It had been a couple of years, but hopefully the number was still good…

            An old woman answered the phone.  Not a good sign.  “I want to talk to Trevor,” he told her.

            “Trevor’s not here right now, love,” the old woman said.  “Who’s calling?”

            “This is Curt Wild.”

            “Are you a friend of Trevor’s, dear?”

            “What the fuck are you doing answering Trevor’s phone if you don’t know who I am!?” Curt demanded.  From the other side of the kitchen, Arthur made a choking sound.

            “This is _my_ phone, and I can answer it if I want!” the old woman screeched back at him.  Fuck, that was piercing.

            Curt sighed.  “If Trevor isn’t there, where is he?”  He was getting the feeling that arguing with this old bat wasn’t going to accomplish anything other than to piss him off.

            “Oh, he’ll be at the store.”

            “He’s shopping?”

            The old woman laughed.  “Maybe you don’t know my Trevor.”

            “I haven’t seen him in ten years, but I know him better than most people.”  Though Curt had drawn the line at group sex.  He’d never really been into that, no matter what Brian had liked.  “Whatever this store is, it wasn’t part of his life ten years ago.”  Not unless he had some major fucking secrets.

            “Wasn’t it?”  It was a confused question; she clearly didn’t know the answer herself.

            “So what is this store?  Where is it?”

            “The music store.  He sells guitars and things.”

            Not his own, hopefully.  “Where?” Curt asked.

            The old woman gave him the address, then suddenly screeched “Stop that this instant!” and hung up the phone.  Hopefully, she’d been yelling at a cat or a dog, or maybe Trevor had kids and she was babysitting.  Well, it didn’t matter.  Curt knew the shop, though it had been more of a second-hand clothing store when he’d last been in London.

            “You’re thinkin’ of askin’ Trevor for advice about buyin’ furniture?” Arthur asked, looking at Curt dubiously.

            “I have to talk to him soon anyway,” Curt said.  “Besides, maybe he’ll spot us some money to help pay for the furniture.”

            Arthur laughed uncomfortably.  He was probably too principled to borrow money, especially from someone he didn’t know well.  Fuck that.  Curt didn’t care about borrowing money, and he’d always gotten along with Trevor.

            “We’ll start with lunch,” Curt went on, ignoring Arthur’s discomfort.  “I’m starved.”

            That, at least, was well received, and they were soon on their way to the little pub.  Curt had never really spent much time in pubs in his earlier time in England, so it was a new experience for him.  It was much nicer than the dive bars he used to visit in Detroit and New York, that was for sure.  Food wasn’t bad, either.  Less annoyingly fancy than the shit Brian used to order for them.  Eating fast food like everyone else was more Curt’s speed than five star restaurants that served dishes whose names he couldn’t even pronounce.

            After lunch, they took the Underground to get to the store where they’d find Trevor Finn.  Considering they were basically the same thing, it was surprising how different the London Underground _felt_ compared to the New York subway system.  Classier, somehow.  Maybe that was just because it was cleaner, and didn’t smell like piss?

            As they approached the store—which had had a name change at some point, and was now Finn’s Music—Arthur suddenly stopped.  “There’s a phone over there,” he commented, pointing at a red phone booth.  “Let me call my editor and make sure everything’s all right.  You go on ahead; I’ll catch you up.”

            Curt shrugged, and went on inside.  Looked like a pretty ordinary store.  Instruments, sheet music, records, even a big sign offering music lessons.  The only thing out of the ordinary was that over in one corner were some of the old Venus in Furs costumes.  Curt wondered idly if they were being sold, or if they were just acting as museum pieces.  He hadn’t gone far into the store before a red-headed teenage girl headed over to him.  Wearing too much foundation to cover up her acne, but otherwise she was fairly pretty.

            “Can I help you?” she asked, her voice strained; it reminded Curt of the strain he heard sometimes in Arthur’s voice when he was trying to obscure his accent.  “You lookin’ for anything in particular?”

            “Yeah, I wanna talk to Trevor,” Curt told her.  “I’m an old friend of his.”

            She looked at him dubiously for a moment or two, then shrugged.  “Right?  Well, I’ll tell ‘im.”  Then she headed into a back room without bothering to ask Curt his name or his business.

            Shaking his head, Curt went over to look at the costumes.  God, the stories he could tell about every single one of them.  There weren’t any price tags on them; must have been just there to entertain the customers.  Good.  It’d be fucked up if Trevor was selling his old costumes.  Actually, it was surprising he even had them.  Hadn’t the costumes technically belonged to Brian?  Then again, _he_ didn’t have any use for them any longer, so why not let the band have them?

            “I don’t believe it!”  Trevor’s voice suddenly exclaimed from behind Curt.  Sounded like he was still on the far side of the room.

            Curt turned to look as Trevor approached him.  Trevor hadn’t really changed all that much in the last ten years.  A few lines around the eyes, a slight leathery texture to the skin, maybe a tiny bit of thinning in the hair, but no huge changes.  And unlike a lot of Curt’s American acquaintances from back in the day, Trevor was actually smiling to see him.

            “Curt Wild!” Trevor exclaimed.  “Never thought I’d see you back in England!”

            “America’s shit right now,” Curt sighed.

            “How long have you been back?”

            “Since yesterday.”

            Trevor reached him then, and they clasped each other in a friendly embrace; two men who were into men but not into each other, able to be free in a way most men never could be.  “How’d you find this place?” he asked after they let go again.

            “Called your number.”

            Trevor winced.  “Whatever she said, I apologize,” he said instantly.

            “Who the fuck is she?”

            “My mother,” Trevor explained.  “Not right anymore,” he added, tapping the side of his head with one finger.

            Shit.  Now Curt was starting to feel bad about having been rude to her on the phone.  “Yeah?  What’s wrong with her?”

            Trevor shrugged.  “Her doctor called it mental abstraction.”

            “Why didn’t he just admit he didn’t know?”

            “He’d get paid less that way.  Meself, I think she had a stroke.  That can do terrible things to the wits.”

            “Were you close to her?”  Curt wasn’t even sure what else he should say.  Arthur might know.  Mandy would _definitely_ know.  Then again, she probably already knew all this shit.  If that was the case, Curt was gonna chew her out for not warning him.  She _knew_ he was planning on talking to Trevor.

            “Not really.  But she got to the point where she couldn’t take care of herself.  And luckily enough, that was just when I needed a place to stay after a bad break-up.  So it works out.  I get a nice house to live in, and keep an eye on the old bird so she doesn’t hurt herself.  I’ve lived under worse arrangements.”

            “Haven’t we all?”  Not that Curt would be willing to enter an arrangement like that for his own mother.  She could rot in Hell for all he cared.  “Does she even remember you used to be a pro?”

            “On her good days.”  Trevor smiled weakly.  “Not one of her good days, eh?”

            “She had no idea who I was.”

            Trevor sighed.  “She used to know.  Called me up whenever she could to lecture me about how you and Brian were setting a bad example for the children.”

            Curt grimaced.  He definitely didn’t feel bad about having cursed at her earlier.  “So, you still playing?  Other than in offering lessons to snot-nosed brats?” he added, gesturing at the sign with the lesson prices with a jerk of his head.

            “Sure.  Not doing much professionally anymore, but I keep my hand in,” Trevor assured him.  “You’re looking for back-up?”

            “I was thinking about it, yeah.  What about the rest of the band?”

            Trevor shrugged.  “We’ve all got day jobs now.  Have to pay the bills somehow.  But we still play together sometimes.  I won’t speak for them, but I wouldn’t mind getting back up on the stage again.”

            “Glad to hear it.”  If the others wouldn’t, it wasn’t the end of the world.  Bare minimum, a guitar and a drum were more than enough.  And it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a drummer who could handle Curt’s music.

            “So, like, can I take my break now, Mr. Finn?”  The teenage girl was suddenly at Trevor’s side, looking at him with the bored but slightly twitchy eyes of an addict.

            “You smoke too much, Sandra,” Trevor told her.  “And no, you can’t have your break now.  I’m busy, so if any customers come in, you’ll have to help them.”

            The girl scowled, and cast a cold stare at Curt.  “Is this guy _really_ a friend of yours?  He’s an American.”

            Curt laughed.  How the fuck else was he supposed to react to that?

            “I’m giving you homework tonight, Sandra,” Trevor said, his voice much harder than Curt was used to hearing it.

            “You can’t do that!  This is work, not school!  I get enough homework at uni already!”

            “I’m sending you home with some of my record collection tonight, and you’re going to listen to them.  _All_ of them,” Trevor insisted firmly.

            “But your music is _weird_ , Mr. Finn,” Sandra objected in a whine.  “Burning babies and flying saucers and all that bollocks.  It’s _creepy_.”

            Trevor sighed.  “Just think of it as learning about different ways of orchestrating a piece of music.  You could use the lesson.”

            “Aren’t I supposed to be rebelling against all your shitty old music?” Sandra pointed out.

            “I’m not old enough to be your father.  You’re supposed to be rebelling against the ‘60s, not the ‘70s.”

            Sandra sighed deeply, and grumbled something inaudible before stomping away into the back room.

            “Real winner there,” Curt chuckled.  “What’d you hire her for?”

            “Don’t let her bad manners fool you.  She’s actually a talented young thing,” Trevor assured him.  “She came in here looking to buy a guitar, and when she couldn’t afford it, we worked out a deal where she’d work for the money.”

            “So she’s a musician?”

            “Got her own little band.  They play Victorian pub songs—the bawdy ones—re-orchestrated to modern rock beats.”

            “I can’t quite imagine that…”  Couldn’t see the _reason_ anyone would want to do that, either, but…maybe being confusing and weird was the point.  That had been the point behind a lot of Brian’s lyrics, after all.  Or Curt thought that was the point of them.  He’d never really bothered to ask…

            “I’ll take you to see her band perform sometime,” Trevor said.  “They’ve got interesting stagecraft, too.  And costumes.  Not as flashy as ours,” he added, gesturing fondly to his own costumes nearby, “but they have a real flair for combining the Victorian and the modern sensibilities in all the right ways.”

            Curt hesitated a minute.  “Am I drunk?”

            “I don’t know.  You don’t smell like you’re drunk.”

            “Then you’re really saying all that shit.”

            Trevor laughed.  “Glad to see you haven’t changed.”  He slapped Curt on the arm briefly, then turned to look at the costumes sadly.  “Did you have anyone come ‘round to pester you about Brian?” he asked.  “They were thick as thieves around here in January.  Because of the anniversary…”

            “Yeah…”  Curt glanced at the door of the shop briefly.  When he looked back at Trevor, he saw the man giving him a bemused stare.  “What’s that look about?” he demanded.

            “I was wondering what that little smile meant.”

            Curt laughed.  “Oh, I kept one,” he explained, feeling his face break out into a grin.  “One of the reporters.”

            Trevor laughed, too.  “Must be nice being you.”

            “It has its perks.”  Though these days they were few and far between.

            Trevor’s smile faded a bit.  “I…uh…I guess you didn’t actually tell anyone anything…”

            “Wasn’t allowed to,” Curt sighed.  “That’s why we had to leave the country.  Couldn’t even fucking see each other without those assholes interfering.”

            They didn’t either of them seem to have anything to say to that, and the room remained quiet until the sound of the door opening broke through the silence.  Trevor’s eyebrows raised slightly.  “Is that him?” he asked quietly.

            Curt glanced over his shoulder and saw Arthur heading towards them.  “Yeah,” he said, grinning again.

            “Nice.”  Trevor shook his head.  “You’ve always been a lucky dog.”

            When Arthur reached them, Curt quickly introduced them, carefully keeping his arm around Arthur, just in case Trevor got any funny ideas.  Didn’t seem like him to try something like that, but how fucking embarrassing would it be if he did, and it worked?  Not the sort of thing Curt would be able to easily live down.  The whole time, Trevor seemed to be staring at Arthur, but it didn’t really look like ‘about to make a pass’ kind of staring.

            “Is there something wrong with my face…?” Arthur eventually asked, nearly squirming under the other man’s gaze.

            “Sorry, didn’t mean to stare,” Trevor said, with a friendly smile.  “Just thought you looked familiar, but I’m having trouble figuring out why.”

            “You probably saw him around back in the day,” Curt said.  “He used to bed down with the Flaming Creatures, if you can believe that.”

            “Curt, don’t put it like that!” Arthur objected.  “It wasn’t just a sexual thing!”

            “It wouldn’t be with that lot,” Trevor chuckled.  “Odd ducks, but good ones.  They’ve been making a fair comeback lately.  They’ve got this new song called ‘Beware Big Brother’ that’s been quite popular.”

            Arthur laughed.  “That’ll ‘ave been Ray’s work,” he said, shaking his head.  “Well, he was right to worry…”

            “I don’t know; that almost seems insulting to Big Brother,” Curt commented, shaking his head.  Reynolds was a real piece of shit.  And about as subtle as one, too.

            “You know, things aren’t that much better here,” Trevor insisted.  “Thatcher’s no picnic.”

            “She’s Mary Poppins compared to Reynolds,” Arthur replied.

            Trevor raised an eyebrow, but didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.  After another uncomfortable silence—in which Sandra came back into the room to see if she was needed, despite how long it had been since the door had opened—Trevor finally turned his gaze back to Curt.  “You seen anyone else since getting back in town?”

            “Not yet.  Like I said, just got in yesterday.  Most of my shit’s still in suitcases.  The numbers I have are probably no good, anyway.”

            Trevor nodded.  “Yeah, everyone’s moved around a fair bit.  I can put you in touch with anybody you might want to talk to, though.  We keep in touch well enough.  Well, anybody other than Jack Fairy.  Don’t know what happened to him.  Haven’t seen him in years.”

            “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve heard from him since ’78,” Curt sighed.  Jack had never been terribly communicative, and as the world started leaving them all behind, he seemed to have decided it was time to leave the world behind in return.  He was probably in a Tibetan monastery or something.  That seemed like something he’d do:  he’d come back in another ten years with magic powers or some shit.  “How long’s it been since you spoke to Mandy?”

            “Mandy?  Not since February,” Trevor said, shaking his head.  “That’s when we usually talk.”

            “Well, she’ll be calling you soon to let us know what flight she’s on,” Curt said.  “I didn’t have a number to give her for my place, and it didn’t seem like a good idea to give her Arthur’s new work number, just in case.”  Not to mention that he had kind of failed to inform Mandy that she had already met his new boyfriend.  Given the context of that meeting, she might not be terribly pleased by that fact.

            “In case of what?”

            Curt sighed.  “I know we both had our phone lines tapped, but I don’t know how much more surveillance we were under.  And once they realize I fled the country, they might search Mandy’s place looking for information.  If they found a phone number for a London newspaper?  Fuck, she’d never get out that way.”

            “Is she coming back to England for good, too?”  Trevor seemed remarkably unfazed by the news that Curt and Mandy were under constant surveillance in New York.  Surely those fuckers didn’t have their tentacles around England, too?

            Curt shrugged.  “That wasn’t the plan, but I think after she’s gotten out of the country, she might want to stay away a while.  It’s so fucked up back home right now.  You wouldn’t believe it.”

            Trevor looked uncomfortable.  “I read something in the paper last week saying that it’s still under martial law after all this time?”

            Arthur smiled.  Must have been his article.  “They’re not callin’ it that anymore, but that’s what it is.  The official declaration of martial law was only for a few months after the attempt on Reynolds’ life back in ’81, but the armed guards on every street corner have never gone away.  And any time they see someone out after dark that they find suspicious, ‘breaking curfew’ is always among the charges, even though the curfew was supposed to go away at the end of the period of martial law.”

            Trevor let out a low whistle.  “Can’t believe that doesn’t get more press outside the country.”

            “It gets some attention in the major Canadian cities, since they ‘ave to deal with the slow stream of fleein’ Americans, but other than that…the Reynolds publicity machine covers it up far too well,” Arthur sighed.

            “What was the guy after when he tried to kill Reynolds, anyway?  There was talk of him being a terrorist, but I don’t remember any details ever surfacing.”

            Arthur shrugged.  “No one ever found proof of anything.  And they arranged to ‘ave him murdered in prison so quickly.  Not to mention that his attorney suddenly became wealthy overnight and refused to talk to the press ever again.”  He shook his head.  “Based on what I saw of the story before the White House released its official version and put an end to all investigation, I think the man was just mental.  No partners, no terrorism, just a lunatic with a gun.  But Reynolds wanted to milk it for everything it was worth, and a madman isn’t worth much, not compared to a terrorist.”

            Trevor shook his head.  “Terrifying stuff,” he said grimly.  “Makes me glad guns are so bleeding rare in this country.”

            “I think we can all agree on that,” Curt interjected.  He was quite tired of listening to them discussing fucking politics.  “What’s gonna happen if Mandy calls your place when you’re not home?”

            Trevor laughed.  “Mandy knows how to talk to my mum.  It’ll be all right.”

            “That was his _mother_ you were cursin’ at?!” Arthur exclaimed, his eyes wide with horror.

            “Will she be staying with you when she gets here?” Trevor asked, ignoring Arthur entirely.

            Curt shrugged.  “We didn’t talk about that, but she’s gonna be disappointed if that’s what she’s planning.  She’ll probably just get a room at a hotel.  Or maybe stay with old friends.  She’s got a fucking ton of them.”

            “Once she’s back in town, we need to all get together,” Trevor said, his voice more somber than usual.  “I think we have some important business to discuss,” he added, glancing over at his old costumes.

            “Yeah.”  Curt didn’t exactly want to hurry to hand Arthur the story that would make him leave, but…maybe it was better to just get it over with.  Rip the bandage off fast.

            “We could all meet up at your new place,” Trevor went on, looking at Curt with a bit of mischief in his smile.  “See how you’re settling in.”

            Curt and Arthur both looked at each other uncomfortably.  “I…I’m not so sure that’s…a good idea…” Arthur said, his voice weak and uneven.

            “Why not?”  From the laughter in his voice, Trevor had probably guessed half of it.

            “You know how much they don’t pay reporters?” Curt laughed, pulling Arthur closer against his side.  “And I couldn’t send much money with him.  Plus my money’s all kind of tied up.”  Mostly tied up in other people’s bank accounts, leeched away from him when he wasn’t sober enough to notice what they were doing until it was far too late to stop them.  “So we don’t really have any furniture right now.”

            Trevor laughed, shaking his head.

            “Actually, I was hoping you’d be able to recommend someplace to get some cheap furniture,” Curt went on.  “Cheap but not crap.”

            “Second hand, maybe,” Arthur added.

            “Yeah, I know some places,” Trevor assured them.  “Let me find something to write on, and—”

            Arthur reached into that bag of his—why was he even wearing it when he wasn’t actively reportering?—and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.  Always prepared, like a fucking Boy Scout.  Hell, maybe he _was_ a Boy Scout when he was a kid.  If they _had_ Boy Scouts in England.  Curt kind of had a feeling they didn’t, actually…

            Trevor started writing out some addresses on a blank sheet of paper.  “You’ll want to start with this first one,” he told them.  “The owner used to be a big fan, so if you can get them to call him out of his office, he’ll probably give you a massive discount.”

            Curt laughed.  “Sounds good to me,” he agreed.  Then he hesitated a moment before clearing his throat.  Discount or not, it wouldn’t be enough.  He only had a few hundred dollars left, and he’d been in such a hurry to find Arthur that he hadn’t stopped to change them to pounds yet.  “Uh…I don’t suppose you could loan me some money to pay with?” he asked, hearing his voice go hoarse halfway through.

            Trevor looked at him with one cocked eyebrow.  “What happened to the money from all those gold records?”

            “Most of it stayed with the record companies,” Curt sighed.  “I’ve never been given a decent contract in my life.”

            Trevor grimaced.  “I know the feeling,” he agreed.  “But you must have _some_ money…”

            “Not much.  And most of it’s still in New York.  Mandy’s gonna bring it.”

            There was a lengthy pause, in which Trevor wrote down one more address, then handed the notebook back to Arthur.  “I’m not so flush myself, but I can loan you a few hundred quid,” Trevor said, shaking his head.

            “Sales not so good?”

            “I have to keep my hands off a lot of my own cash.  Between needing to be able to fund the store in case of emergencies and needing to have it on hand if my mother needs medical treatment…”  Trevor spread his hands helplessly.  “It’s surprisingly hand-to-mouth around here.”

            “Then surely we shouldn’t—” Arthur started.

            “I’ll look up some clubs where we can perform,” Curt told Trevor, cutting Arthur off.  “Then we’ll both have some money coming in.”

            Trevor laughed.  “Sounds good to me, mate.  Sandra!”

            The girl came out of the back room.  “Can I go on my break _now_?” she asked.

            “I’m going out for a few minutes,” Trevor told her.  “You need to watch the store while I’m gone.”

            The girl sighed exaggeratedly, but Curt thought he saw an eagerness in her expression.  Trevor probably didn’t often trust her to mind the shop by herself.  “What if someone calls for you?” she asked.

            “Tell them I’ll be back soon.  I’m just headed to the bank.”

            Trevor started ushering them both out before the shopgirl could argue.

            Curt glanced up at the sign above the door as they left the store.  “What made you decide to buy this place and turn into a music store, anyway?”

            “Oh, it was about to go belly-up, and—fool that I was—I thought it might be a laugh.”  Trevor sighed.  “About the only fun I ever get out of it is going into attic to look over all the old clothes the previous owner couldn’t re-sell.”

            “What kind of clothes?” Curt asked.

            “This was where everyone sold off his glam gear,” Arthur interjected.  “I sold my things here.”

            “Then they’re probably still up in the attic,” Trevor told him, shaking his head.

            “Shit, really?  Damn, once we’ve got some more time, we’ll have to go through and find anything of yours that’s up there!” Curt exclaimed.  “Especially the stuff you were wearing when we first met.”

            Arthur flushed a beautiful crimson.  “It would only be the blouse,” he insisted.  “The rest of it was normal enough that I could keep it.  And it wouldn’t fit me now anyway…”

            Trevor was watching them with amused, eager eyes, and soon was demanding the entire story.  Arthur squirmed in embarrassment the whole time, but didn’t stop Curt from telling it in lavish detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know about sooner than that, but they will need an air-conditioner by 1995. Unless climate change is slower in their alternate history than in reality.


	6. Chapter 6

            Some days, Arthur wondered if the world operated on some kind of balance system:  if something particularly nice was to happen—say, a lover came back who was supposed to be gone for good—then myriad unpleasant things had to happen to balance out the scales and keep a fellow from being too happy.  A system like that would certainly explain his current situation.

            Curt had come to England to be with him after all, which should have made Arthur the happiest man in the world.  And then he’d taken Arthur to meet Trevor Finn, lead guitarist of the Venus in Furs, which should have been thrilling for him.  But Curt had gone out of his way to tell Trevor as many embarrassing things as he possibly could, to ensure that Arthur would be mortified the entire time.  _And_ he had borrowed money from the man so that they could go buy furniture.

            Because what could _possibly_ be embarrassing about two grown men shopping for furniture together?

            Apart from everything.

            Trying to alleviate the humiliation somewhat, Arthur had suggested that they should split up and look for different things within the store.  To save time.  But Curt had insisted on looking for both his favourite articles of furniture:  the bed and the sofa.  That left Arthur with the far simpler task of a proper table and chairs.  And perhaps some shelves.

            He had noted a number of things that were almost in their price range when Arthur decided to see how Curt was doing.  To his eternal mortification, he found himself following a trail of whispering, scandalised shoppers.  The trail eventually led to Curt, who stood beside one of the beds, bucking his hips at it as if he was testing its height to shag someone lying on top of the bed.  No, not ‘as if.’  That was _exactly_ what he was doing.  Heedless of the fact that everyone was staring at him.

            “Curt, you’re makin’ a scene,” Arthur said to him quietly as he arrived.

            “Hey, what do you think of this bed?” Curt asked, looking at him, completely nonplussed.  “Doesn’t look like much, but the height’s good.  And it seems sturdy.”

            “I’m sure it’s fine, just try and remember we’re in public, please.”  Arthur made a small gesture in the direction of some of the middle-aged women who were still staring at Curt with disgust.

            “Ah, they can go fuck themselves,” Curt laughed.  “Here, lie down and give it a test for—”

            “Curt, I’m not lyin’ down on a bed in a store.  Period.”  Even in the ‘70s he wouldn’t have done that.  He probably wouldn’t have even done that as a _child_.

            “What’s got you so uptight all of a sudden?”

            “There’s nothing sudden about it.  I’ve been like this for years.”

            Curt sighed, shaking his head.  “We’ll have to do something about that.”

            Arthur did his best to contain his grimace.  “Did you find anything else?” he asked.  “You were going to look for a sofa, too.”

            “Yeah, didn’t get that far.  The bed’s more important.”  Curt patted the post of the headboard on the bed they were standing beside.  “I think this one should work, don’t you?”

            Arthur wasn’t sure what he should be looking for.  He’d never had to buy furniture before, after all:  the only flats he had ever rented by himself had been furnished, after a fashion.  The bed wasn’t decorative in any way, just plain wood, but it was the right size for the mattress they already had, and it looked solid enough to hold up their weight even in the midst of heavy activity.  “The price might be a little high,” he commented, glancing at the price tag.  They were on a _very_ strict budget, after all.  It would still be more than a week before he’d get his first paycheque.

            Curt shrugged.  “Doubt we’ll find one much cheaper.  We can forget about shelves for a while if we have to.  And put off the table and chairs for a while.”

            Arthur didn’t much like the idea of putting off the table and chairs, as he was afraid the computer the paper had issued him with might melt through the folding table if he used it too much, but he didn’t say anything.  The idea of getting in a fight with Curt over _furniture_ was too horrible to risk.  Instead he just suggested that they go ahead and look at the sofas and see what they could find.

            There weren’t very many sofas, not compared to the other types of furniture, but they found one that met with Curt’s approval.  Tallying up the prices of everything they had found, Arthur was distressed to realise that it was far too high, nearly twice as much as they had.  Curt didn’t seem to care, however, and was soon calling over one of the employees to ask if the store had any kind of layaway plan.  Naturally, that caused them to call out the owner, which was surely Curt’s plan in the first place.

            The owner was a pudgy, middle-aged man who practically swooned on seeing Curt in person.  True to Trevor’s prediction, he gave them an unspeakable discount:  he let them pay half-price, despite his employee’s objections that there would be literally no profit that way.  He even threw in free delivery, and let them ride in the van with the furniture.  Despite that they didn’t have that much cash left, Arthur insisted on tipping the lads who had brought the furniture inside for them.  At least _someone_ should get a little out of the transaction other than the two of them.

            Only the bed was set up right away, and as soon as the door was locked behind the delivery boys, Curt insisted that they needed to break it in immediately.  Arthur should have upbraided him for that, but how could he?

            “So what position do you think?” Curt asked, after they’d finished disrobing each other.  “Want to try something exotic?”

            “Exotic?” Arthur repeated, dubiously.  “I’m not sure I follow…”

            Curt put a hand on one of the posts of the headboard.  “Yeah, something a little _different_.”

            Arthur bit his lip uncomfortably.  He had considerable misgivings about the wickedness of Curt’s current expression.  “Maybe we shouldn’t try anything likely to damage the bed,” he suggested cautiously.  “Since we only just got it.”

            Curt sighed miserably.  “I guess we’ll have to try that later, then,” he grumbled.

            “Try what?”

            “I wanted to handcuff you to the bed.”

            Arthur blanched.  That was _not_ what he signed on for.  “I think I’d rather not.”

            “It’s fine, really.  I’ve done it before,” Curt insisted.  Arthur hadn’t really wanted to know that.

            “Then maybe I should handcuff _you_ to the bed,” Arthur suggested instead.

            Curt’s face went pale.  “No fucking way is anyone doing that to me again,” he said coldly.  Shite, someone had actually convinced him to do that in the past?  Must have been Brian…  “If it really means that much to you, I…”  Curt started, avoiding Arthur’s gaze.  What was he on about?  “I mean, it’s not like you’d have to do that just to—I don’t like being on the bottom as much, but it’s not like I hate it…”

            Arthur’s heart started pounding.  Was he really offering to let Arthur take him?  Could he actually be that serious about their relationship?  Dazed with delight, Arthur kissed him passionately.  “If you really mean that, I’ll definitely take you up on that offer at some point,” Arthur said, their faces still so close together that their foreheads were grazing each other.  “But not right yet.”

            Curt looked at him suspiciously.  “Now, later, what’s the difference?”

            “Our first time—the first time you were inside me—was absolutely perfect.  If I’m goin’ to be inside you, I want that first time to be perfect, too,” Arthur explained.

            Curt smiled at him warmly.  “Yeah, that’s true,” he agreed.  “So we’ll just do something normal right now.  Here, lie down on the edge of the bed.  I wanna try it standing up.”

            Arthur resisted the urge to sigh, and did as he was told.  As Curt had already demonstrated—all too publically—in the store, the bed was precisely the right height; Curt was soon standing at the edge of the bed, with Arthur’s legs wrapped around his waist, gently sliding his prophylactic-covered cock inside Arthur’s arse.

 

***

 

            Thursday morning, Arthur didn’t want to get out of bed.  It was the first time since he’d come back to England that he had even slept in a bed—before he’d rented the flat, he’d been staying on one of his new co-worker’s couches—and of course he didn’t want to leave the warm embrace of Curt’s arms.  But he only worked two days a week, so he couldn’t afford to miss a day.

            Curt wasn’t terribly pleased at the notion that Arthur was going to go to work—such a wonderfully flattering thought!—but he eventually agreed that Arthur really needed to go.  Of course, Arthur was concerned that Curt might get bored alone with no telly, but he said he’d use the time to contact the rest of the Venus in Furs and see if they were all interested in joining him on stage, or if it would just be him and Trevor.

            Arthur’s work day was, of course, dreadfully dull.  It would have been even if he _hadn’t_ had the pleasures of Curt’s bed— _their_ bed—awaiting him at the end of the day.  But his co-workers all remarked how much more cheerful he looked, and the receptionist kept looking at him as if she had guessed altogether too much.  Arthur didn’t care even if she _had_ guessed just what kind of relationship he had with the man who had flown in from America.  What could it hurt for her—or any of his co-workers—to know that?  Even if it cost him his job, it wouldn’t matter.  There were other jobs to be had, other workplaces that wouldn’t care about whether or not he was queer.  And he could always contact his old friends, looking for advice about where to find a good job.

            When he got back to the flat after his seemingly interminable day at work, Arthur was perplexed to hear the sound of unfamiliar voices coming from within.  Once he was inside, he found Curt sitting on the sofa, watching a surprisingly large television.  Curt soon explained that he had borrowed money from the other members of the band as well, in order to buy more of what the flat needed.  Of course, then he had just sat down and started watching the telly, instead of unpacking any of his things into the new shelves and drawers.  Well, Arthur had the next three days off work.  That was—hopefully—plenty of time for them to finish unpacking Curt’s things.

            It was actually a fairly near thing, but by Sunday evening, they were almost fully settled in.  Arthur would still need to pick up a desk for his computer after he got paid—he refused to use borrowed money for that purpose!—but for the most part the flat had everything it needed.  It was a comforting feeling; the last time he had felt so like there was a place he truly belonged, Arthur had still been rooming with the Flaming Creatures.

            The following Monday, Arthur took his lunch at a new little café down the street from his office, rather than at the nearest pub as he had grown accustomed to doing.  The café was quite popular, and he actually had to wait a while to be seated.  While he was waiting, Arthur was surprised to hear a familiar voice calling his name.

            “Is that really our little Arthur?” the voice repeated as the speaker came nearer.

            “Ray?”  His former flatmates were the last people Arthur would have expected to run into in such a traditional establishment.  But it was unquestionably Ray.  He hadn’t even changed all that much in the last ten years, apart from now being dressed rather like everyone else on the street.

            Ray pulled Arthur close in a huge hug that had everyone else in the café staring at them.  “When did you come home?” he asked.

            “About three weeks ago,” Arthur admitted, feeling his cheeks heat up in shame.  “I didn’t want to look anyone up until I was fully settled in,” he added.  A pathetic excuse, but what could he say?  He didn’t want to admit that he had spent the first two weeks wallowing in misery because he thought he’d been dumped by the love of his life.  That would be beyond humiliating.  Though if anyone would understand what he had gone through in those two weeks, it was Ray.

            “Tell me you’re back for good!”

             “I’ve got no plans to return to America anytime soon.”  Whether or not he stayed in London for good would depend on Curt, one way or another.

            “You heard the band got back together, right?” Ray asked.

            “Yes, I did,” Arthur assured him, “and I couldn’t ‘ave been more pleased.  I thought once I was done adjustin’ to bein’ back, I’d come by the club where you’re playin’ and surprise you.”

            Ray laughed.  “I’ll try not to tell the others, then.  But did you hear the rumour?”

            “What rumour?”

            “Curt Wild’s back in London, and he’s been getting together with the Venus in Furs.”

            Arthur couldn’t stop himself from laughing, a big grin on his face.  “Yeah, I know all about that.”

            Ray shoved him playfully, tousling his hair afterwards.  “You little minx!” he exclaimed.  “How long has _that_ been going on?”

            “Hard to put it in words,” Arthur admitted.  “The situation’s more complicated than you think.”  It was so complicated, in fact, that it took him half of lunch to explain the full situation to Ray.

            Once the explanation was over, Ray sighed deeply.  “Always knew there was something off about Tommy Stone,” he said, shaking his head.  “But I never imagined…”

            “It surprised me, too.”  Arthur shrugged.  “Curt knew just by takin’ one look at him, as you’d expect.  From the sound of things, the Venus in Furs were never fooled, either.”

            “Why don’t they expose him?”

            Arthur shrugged.  “I imagine that’s what they want to talk about when Mandy gets into town.”

            “Mandy Slade?  You’re on a first name basis with _her_ , too?”

            Arthur coughed uncomfortably.  “Not remotely,” he admitted.  “I don’t think she even knows I’m the one Curt ran off with.  But Curt’s so casual with her.  I suppose it’s rubbin’ off on me.”  He shrugged.  “She’s comin’ in to London in a few days, and everyone’s gettin’ together at Trevor’s shop to talk.”

            “I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that,” Ray sighed.  “Don’t suppose you’re handing out invitations.”

            “I’m not even sure if _I’ll_ be allowed to take part,” Arthur replied, shaking his head.  It probably depended on if they were actually planning on exposing Brian’s new identity or not.  If they were, hopefully they’d let him be the one to write it up, in which case his being part of the meeting would only make sense.  But if they _didn’t_ want to expose him, then Arthur would probably be locked out of the conversation.  That would hurt, but he was determined not to let on if it happened.

            “Why wouldn’t you be?” Ray asked.  “Isn’t Curt serious about you?”

            The words were a knife in Arthur’s heart.  “I…”  He paused, biting his lip.  “Honestly, I’m not sure what he’s thinkin’.  Sometimes it feels like I’m just an easy lay to him, but sometimes…sometimes he seems utterly serious.”

            “Just up and ask him.  What’s the worst that could happen?”

            “He could take offense and break up with me.”

            Ray smiled weakly.  “I suppose so,” he admitted.  “So you’re just going to wait for him to give you a sign?”

            Arthur shrugged.  “For the moment, I don’t see what else I _can_ do.”

            “Maybe you need to pour on the sugar and make sure that he gets serious, if he isn’t already,” Ray suggested.

            Arthur laughed.  “Once things settle down a bit, I might try something along those lines,” he said, despite that he doubted he'd ever have the courage for it.

            “Bring him with you when you come to the club.  We can all tell him how fantastic you are.”

            “I think that would ‘ave the opposite effect,” Arthur sighed.  “He doesn’t like bein’ reminded I used to be involved with you.”

            Ray was silent for a moment, then laughed.  “I must be hotter than I thought if I can make the great Curt Wild jealous!”

            Arthur was uncomfortably aware of the fact that Ray’s loud exclamation had caused at least half the café to stare at them.  In his nervous agitation, he found himself looking at his watch, only to realise that his lunch break was nearly over.  “Shite, I’ll be late!”  He got up hastily, and left some money to cover his half of the tab.  “I’ll see you again soon.  Promise.”

            Only by running the entire way back to his office was Arthur barely able to squeak back to his desk without being caught arriving five minutes late from lunch.  Admittedly, five minutes wasn’t much, but considering how newly hired he was, it would seem like much more.

            Because the election in America was becoming more involved, Arthur couldn’t get his article finished quite as quickly as he should have liked, and ended up having to stay nearly an hour later than usual.  When he called Curt to let him know he’d be late, he promised to pick up dinner on the way, to make up for his tardiness.

            On the whole trip home, however, Arthur kept thinking about his conversation with Ray, and about the meeting with Mandy and the Venus in Furs.  One worry in particular kept nagging at him, and he wasn’t able to hold it in for very long after getting back to the flat.  They had barely sat down to eat before Arthur asked the question.

            “Curt, did you tell Mandy just who you were livin’ with now?”

            Curt laughed, and shook his head.  “Didn’t seem like a good idea.  I don’t know how far those guys go with their surveillance shit.  Besides, what if she got nervous and panicked?  Better not to risk it, I thought.”

            Arthur frowned.  Technically, Curt was right, and yet…  “What do you think she’ll do when she finds out?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Nothing much.”  He chuckled.  “No, actually, I  know exactly what she’ll do.  She’ll take one look at you and say ‘Well, that explains everything!’”

 

***

 

            Curt had _almost_ been right.  As soon as he brought Mandy into the apartment and she saw Arthur, she let out a deep, resigned sigh before saying “Well, that certainly explains a lot.”

            Arthur started stammering out an uncomfortable greeting, but Mandy completely ignored him.  Maybe he had been right, and he _didn’t_ have any effect on women, despite how hot he was.  Weird.

            “Is there a spare bedroom for me stay in?” Mandy asked, looking at Curt skeptically.

            “Not unless you like sleeping on the floor,” Curt laughed.

            Mandy pulled a face like she was disappointed and yet also hadn't expected any better from him.  “Can I at least leave some of my luggage here, then?  I have a friend who’ll let me stay with her, but she’d be upset to see so many bags.”  Who wouldn’t be?  She’d apparently brought her entire fucking wardrobe.  She had almost as many bags as Curt had, and he’d been bringing everything he owned!

            “Yeah, you can leave your stuff in the back room,” Curt assured her.  “We’re not gonna get into it.”

            “Most people would leave that implied,” Mandy reprimanded him.  “Which way?” she added, lifting one of her suitcases.

            Arthur hurried to grab another bag, smiling weakly at her.  “This way, Ms. Slade,” he said, before leading her towards the back room.  What the fuck was he being so damned polite for?  It was just _Mandy_.  No reason to be all formal about it.

            Shaking his head, Curt grabbed another bag, and followed them back.  It took a few more trips to ferry all her shit into the back room, all in an awkward silence only broken when Curt tried to pick up one of the two small bags Mandy planned to take with her to her friend’s apartment.  Once that was over with, Mandy picked up the smaller bag, and fixed Curt with a piercing stare.  “Carry my other bag for me on the way to the bus stop,” she said.

            “Don’t you need to let your friend know you’re comin’?” Arthur asked.

            “She’s expecting me,” Mandy assured him.  “Now, are you going to be a good boy, Curt?”  Her voice was sickly sweet.  She only talked like that when she was _really_ fucking pissed off.

            Curt grimaced.  This was going to get ugly, and he really didn’t want to take part in it.

            “I could carry it if you’d like,” Arthur offered.

            “No, Curt’s going to do it,” Mandy replied, her cold eyes never leaving Curt.

            Whatever she had to say to him, if he didn’t do as she said, she’d probably start screaming it right there in the apartment where Arthur could hear it.  That would _have_ to be worse.  “Call out for dinner while I’m gone,” Curt said as he picked up the bag.  It was fucking heavy!  What did she have in it, lead weights?  “I’m gonna be hungry.”

            Arthur nodded uncomfortably, his forehead creasing up.  Curt didn’t even want to think about what was going on in that funny little brain of his.  Probably thought Curt was gonna spend the whole time flirting with Mandy or some stupid shit like that.  Even though _he_ was the one being so solicitous of her.

            Mandy waited until they were out on the street to light into Curt.  “What the fuck is the matter with you?!”

            “Nothing.”

            “In the first place, do you have any idea what those people would do to you if they found out you were fucking a reporter?  Second, it’s disgustingly unprincipled of both of you, a complete abuse of position.  And third—and most important—he’s _much_ too young for you.”

            Curt laughed.  “C’mon, he’s older than he was ten years ago.”

            “That goes without saying,” Mandy sighed, “and I don’t see what that has to do with anything.  You’re older than you were ten years ago, too.”

            “You didn’t recognize him?”

            “He’s that reporter who was looking for Brian just before the anniversary…”

            Curt sighed.  “Yeah, but you’d seen him before.”  As they walked, he reminded her of their chance meeting with Arthur backstage at the Death of Glitter concert.

            Mandy chuckled when Curt finished talking.  “No wonder he was so interested in knowing what concert it was.  But why do you remember—oh God.  You _didn’t_.”

            “Of course I did!”  How was Curt supposed to resist such a pretty face?

            “But he was just a child!”

            “He was seventeen,” Curt corrected, though it was actually only a guess.  He’d never bothered to check just how old Arthur was, then or now.  But seventeen sounded about right.  He certainly couldn’t have been much younger than that, or the Flaming Creatures would never have been able to get away with having him live with them.  “Plenty old enough to know what he was doing.”

            “That's not how most people would view it.”

            “Yeah?”  Curt wasn't entirely sure he believed that, but Mandy didn't seem to be joking.  Still, he’d lost his own virginity a lot younger than that, and to his own asshole brother at that.  It was sometimes hard to remember that that wasn’t normal.  Seventeen felt like open season.  “Well, it’s not like I was popping his cherry or anything, so—”

            “Could you be any more disgusting?!” Mandy exclaimed, shoving him so hard that if her bag hadn’t weighed enough to hold him down, Curt probably would have tumbled forward into the street.

            Naturally, Curt told her exactly what he thought of _that_.  And—as always—Mandy just found it fucking funny that he was cursing her out.  Why did Mandy think every single thing he did was _funny_?  No, surely she hadn’t found it funny when he was fucking her husband…but that might have been the only thing he ever did that _hadn’t_ amused the hell out of her.

            They walked in silence until they reached the bus stop.  Despite how pissed off he was at her, Curt felt obliged to wait with her, just in case someone wanted to come along and mug her or something.  Though there was probably a lot less risk of that in London than there had been in New York.

            “Curt…are you…” Mandy started, then stopped again quickly.

            “Am I what?”

            Mandy glanced back the way they came.  “Did you two decide to leave the country so he’d be free to expose Brian?”

            “I…”  What was he supposed to say to that?  “That’s probably what Arthur was thinking,” Curt admitted sadly.

            “But you don’t want to.”  She sounded a bit relieved.  Did she actually like that Brian was getting away with it?

            Curt looked over at Mandy’s face.  Maybe it was just the fading light, but she actually looked a bit worried.  Curt wasn’t used to having people worry about him…except it was probably Brian she was worried about, not Curt.  “I’m not sure if he’ll stay after he gets his story,” he admitted.  An understatement if Curt had ever uttered one…

            Mandy just stared at him.  “He’s taking advantage of you?”

            Curt shrugged.  “It’s hard to be sure.”  Arthur certainly claimed to be on the level, but Curt knew better than to trust anyone.  “Don’t worry.  I’ve been careful not to let myself get attached.”

            “Curt…”  Mandy set a gentle hand on his arm.  “You’re not capable of keeping yourself from getting attached,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

            “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!” Curt demanded.

            Mandy refused to explain herself.  She just kept looking at him with so much fucking _pity_ in her eyes that it quickly started pissing Curt off.  And yet, somehow, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say anything.  Maybe he had actually _become_ pitiful.  He would be lying if he said the thought of Arthur dumping him wasn’t a bit upsetting, despite his attempts to keep from feeling anything…

            They stood there in silence until the bus pulled up.  Mandy picked up both her suitcases, but it looked like she was having trouble lifting them both at the same time.  “You sure you don’t want me to come with you to keep carrying the other bag?” Curt asked.

            “I think your time would be better spent trying to convince your pretty little friend that you’re more important than any story,” Mandy said, shaking her head.  “Besides, my friend would feel uncomfortable seeing a man arrive at her door.”

            Oh.  She was _that_ kind of ‘friend.’  Curt was actually a little surprised; he’d thought Mandy had stopped being bisexual a long time ago.  Maybe she’d just gotten better at hiding it.  “Okay, if you’re sure.”

            Mandy nodded, and boarded the bus.  Curt couldn’t help watching as it drove away.  Was he doing the right thing?  The whole reason the Venus in Furs wanted to meet with Mandy right away was because they wanted to expose Brian.  But if that happened…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that's a ridiculously high bed. But I decided to trade a little realism for the comedic value of Curt standing there in the furniture store bucking his hips at the bed. :P It actually rather fits his stage persona, don't you think?


	7. Chapter 7

            Despite what he had said to Ray, by the time they were headed back to Trevor’s shop to meet with Mandy and the Venus in Furs, Arthur had gone from being uncomfortable about the idea of taking part in the meeting to being certain that he absolutely shouldn’t.  Even if they really did decide to expose Brian’s secret, Arthur had no business being part of the decision-making process.  He could write the story, of course, but what right could he possibly have to do anything else?

            As they approached the store, Arthur found himself freezing up.  “I don’t think I ought to be goin’ in there with you,” he finally forced himself to say.  “I won’t belong.”

            “What are you talking about?” Curt asked, putting an arm around Arthur’s waist.  In the dimming light on the street, no one seemed to notice.  Or if they did notice, they evidently didn’t care.  “You’re with me.”

            “Yeah, but…that doesn’t really give me the right to…I  just shouldn’t be goin’!”

            Curt scowled at him.  “You’re spouting nonsense,” he said, his voice rigid, almost icy.  “Now get moving, or we’re gonna be late.”

            Arthur nodded, taken aback by the commanding tone in Curt’s voice.  He couldn’t help worrying about it as they continued on towards the store.  There had been no hint of love, or even warmth, in that command.  A momentary panic passed through him that he was somehow just a trophy to Curt, a pretty piece of arm candy, but that was absurd:  even if some men found him a bit attractive, that didn’t change the fact that he was nobody, just a failed journalist.  If Curt went out looking, he could easily find someone worthy of being his trophy, a model or a rising young actor.  It was, in fact, quite frankly surprising that Curt had been willing to admit to Trevor that he and Arthur were involved at all.  It would have made more sense for Curt to deny it, pretend that Arthur was just a random stranger who happened over to their conversation.  That had been why Arthur had lingered outside the store so long, after all; to keep from embarrassing Curt with his presence.  But maybe Curt thought that if he let the Venus in Furs believe he was in a really serious relationship they’d be less likely to think he was motivated by his still-burning love for Brian.

            They entered the store, and found that Sandra, the shopgirl, was sitting on a stool near the door, tuning up a particularly nice guitar.  She looked up at them for a moment, then sighed, and looked back at her guitar.  “They’re in the office,” she muttered, giving one of the tuning knobs a vicious twist.

            As they crossed the store, Arthur kept dragging his feet, wishing he had some excuse to leave.  He would be an intruder at this gathering, inappropriate, uninvited, and unwanted.  But perhaps one of the Venus in Furs would demand that he leave.  And even if they didn’t, surely Mandy would.

            The ‘office’ seemed to be half-storage, half-practice area.  All three of the Venus in Furs were seated at a table not far from the small stage on which their instruments were set up.  And of course they all looked surprised on their arrival.  Before they could say anything, Curt introduced Arthur to them, carefully omitting any mention of his profession.  Trevor didn’t seem to find anything amiss about Arthur’s presence, but Reg and Harley looked more sceptical.  Still, they said nothing to object, and let Curt and Arthur take the remaining two seats at the table, while Trevor quickly fetched another chair.

            Curt and the other three settled into a jovial conversation about venues where they could perform, and which numbers they should start out with.  Arthur sat in silence, trying to listen to them instead of to the rising panic in his gut.  Ten years ago, he would have been overwhelmed with awe and delight to be in this room with these four men.  Now he wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

            They should never have left New York.  They should have kept going as they were.  Why had he ever thought this was a good idea?  A few weeks of uninterrupted time with Curt would be all he would get.  Then Curt would start performing again, and remember how many fans wanted to share his bed, and he’d lose all interest in Arthur.  And then Arthur would probably end up homeless, even though he was the one who had put his name on the lease when he paid the deposit and first month’s rent on the flat.

            And he’d probably accept it without complaining, because what else could he do?  He wasn’t good enough for Curt.  This had all just been his own delusion.

            He should have been glad of what little he had, and not reached for more than his proper due.  Though he had always had that problem, hadn’t he?

            Hearing the other men talking about nightclubs and laughing at old stories just made Arthur more sure that he belonged anywhere but here.  And—as if aware of how uncomfortable they were making him—they didn’t stop for an instant until Mandy arrived.  _She_ , at least, did exactly what Arthur had hoped the Venus in Furs would do:  she looked at Arthur with irritation, almost disgust, and asked “What is _he_ doing here?”

            “What’s eating you?” Trevor asked.  “There’s no harm in it.”

            Mandy grimaced, but she didn’t press the issue, much to Arthur’s disappointment.  She just sat down in the one remaining empty chair, smiled at the band and told them how nice it was to see them again, how well they looked, all the usual niceties.  Of course, they returned the favour, and for a good ten minutes or so the meeting was just an exchange of so much polite interest in what everyone had been doing with themselves for the last ten years.  Naturally, Arthur had no place in this conversation, either, but every time he tried to find an excuse to get up, Curt stifled it immediately.  Even his suggestion that he might fetch them some tea—or other beverages—was instantly rejected.

            Eventually, they finished playing catch-up, and Trevor looked at the other two members of the band.  They nodded sombrely at him, and he turned an almost accusing look at Curt and Mandy.  “We may as well have it out,” he said.  “Why haven’t you ever said anything to put a stop to what Brian’s doing?”

            Curt ground his teeth together so hard that Arthur could hear it, and the sound made him wince.

            “He’s got powerful friends,” Mandy said, her voice shaking slightly.  “Ones who don’t want his secret being made public.”

            “So?” Reg demanded.  “Why would that stop you?”

            “Because every fucking one of them carries a gun, that’s why!” Curt snapped.  “And they’re heartless motherfuckers who wouldn’t hesitate to blow someone away.  I’m too attached to my life to throw it away like that.”

            “But…surely Brian doesn’t want to be working with people who’d threaten to harm either of you…” Trevor said, his voice shaking as though he was the one who had been betrayed.

            Mandy shrugged.  “They’ve never threatened to shoot _me_.  But they made it very clear to me that they work for the government.  Running my mouth off would have landed me in jail.  And I really don’t think I’d like being incarcerated.”

            “Right, but you’re both away from them now,” Harley said, “so why haven’t you told anyone yet?”

            “I…” Curt started, then stopped again, with a slight glance at Arthur.  What did that mean?  Surely Curt couldn’t have spent all this time making love to him just for the purpose of having him handy to write the exposé that would spoil Brian’s new career.

            Could he?

            “It isn’t that simple,” Mandy insisted.  “Even if his backers don’t decide they want vengeance for having their toy ruined, Brian will want revenge if we turn on him like that.  You know how petty he can get when he’s riled, and how persistent he is about it.”

            The band nodded uncomfortably.  It was hard to blame them for being uncomfortable.  Mandy had conveniently left it out of her story when Arthur was interviewing her, but Brian had rather notoriously taken umbrage at another singer’s assessment of his oeuvre—and his love life—and had spent nearly all of 1973 in a bitter feud with him.  Frequent belittling remarks calculated to insult without specifying the target of the insult, turning his fans' minds against the other man’s style of music and mode of dress.  For a feud among rock stars, it was subtle, but the effects cumulated rapidly; Brian had been the death of the other fellow’s career, just as surely as he eventually became the death of his own.  And that had been when he was shackled by public opinion, making certain not to turn audiences against him.  Without that constraint…well, the mind reeled at the horrors he might unleash.

            At the end of a long pause, Reg shook his head.  “Doesn’t matter,” he announced.  “He’s shitting all over everything he used to stand for—everything _we_ stood for.  I don’t want to let him keep that up.”

            “No one does,” Curt agreed, with a sad sigh.

            “But it isn’t that simple,” Mandy insisted.

            “As soon as people learn the truth, they’ll turn against him,” Harley said.  “He’ll lose any power he’s got to strike back at us.”

            This, at least, was something Arthur could speak to.  This was _his_ area of expertise, not theirs.  “Bein’ told the truth isn’t the same thing as acceptin’ that it’s true,” he pointed out.  “When Reynolds had martial law declared, the people more or less accepted it as a natural reaction to the assassination attempt.  The newsreaders on the telly almost all fell in line, but there was hardly a newspaper in the country that didn’t remind its readers that even successful assassinations had never led to a national declaration of martial law, pointin’ out that what Reynolds was doin’ was in no way natural, and that the people needed to fight back while they could.”  Arthur shook his head.  “They read what we wrote, and they understood what we were sayin’, and they didn’t care.  They preferred to believe Reynolds’ sugar-coated lies to our bald truths.  Every paper in the country got countless angry letters and telephone calls, and so many dropped subscriptions that one by one they all had to capitulate.  On the whole, people tend to believe the first thing they hear on a subject, and if that happens to be a lie…convincin’ them otherwise is a lot more work than you’re thinkin’.”

            “Can it really be _that_ difficult?  Most people aren’t stupid,” Trevor insisted.

            “It’s the herd instinct.  Safety in numbers.  Whatever you want to call it.  Even in a society like America’s, that tries to claim it values individualism so highly, people are trained to want to be like everyone else.”  And for most of his time in that country, Arthur had fallen into the same trap, denying himself and pretending to be just like everyone else.  Of all the mistakes he had made in his life, that was the one he would never be able to forgive, no matter what.  “An argument that would convince one person won’t convince a whole crowd of them.  There’s a mass psychology at work that you ‘ave to manipulate if you want even a chance of success.”

            “But that means it’s possible,” Harley concluded.

            Arthur shrugged.  “Probably,” he admitted.  “But you know how popular Tommy Stone is.  Tryin’ to convince his fans that he’s someone else—someone their conservative minds must detest—won’t be easy.  Their natural inclination will be to reject the story as a small-minded smear tactic concocted by jealous rivals.”

            Trevor laughed.  “You really _have_ been out of the country a long time,” he said, shaking his head.  “Tommy Stone gets no particular love around here.”

            “I think they already know, deep down,” Reg said, nodding.  “Ask anyone on the street, and they’ll tell you they think there’s something off about him.”  That was certainly what Ray had said…

            “I’m sorry,” Arthur said, with a weak smile.  “I usually cover politics, so I suppose I’m guilty of exactly what I was just talkin’ about.  The music columns all said he was as popular world-wide as he was in America, and I took them at their word.”

            “He’s popular in French-speaking countries,” Trevor chuckled, “since he’s got a few songs that are half in French.  The rest of Europe merely tolerates him.  ‘One more obnoxious American,’ that’s how they look at him.”

            Curt scowled.  “So it wasn’t enough that he killed my career, now he’s stealing my international reputation?”

            The Venus in Furs all laughed, and Mandy chuckled, patting Curt’s elbow.  “I don’t think anyone’s ever said anything that mild about you,” she said, in tones of mock comfort.

            “Seeing as he’s not so popular around here as you thought,” Trevor continued, looking at Arthur piercingly, “you can do it, right?  Convince the world of the truth.”

            “Me?”  It wasn’t that Arthur was surprised by the request—he had no reason to be there if he wasn’t supposed to be the one writing up the story—but he hated being put on the spot like that.  He should have kept his mouth shut instead of piping up with an opinion where he had no right to offer one.  “Probably, but…”  He wasn’t sure what to say.  After all, back in February, he had been fairly itching to write the story and expose the truth, but somehow it felt wrong under these circumstances.  Maybe it would have been wrong under the original circumstances, too.

            “Don’t worry,” Reg said, with a ragged smile.  “We’ll tell you what to say.  You just have to provide that psychological know-how to get people to believe it.”

            Arthur nodded uncomfortably.  There was no point in explaining that his concern had been far more complex than lack of information.  As the Venus in Furs began to outline everything they thought the public needed to know, Arthur took his notebook out of his satchel and started taking notes.

            Most of it wasn’t useful—in fact, at least a third of it was so extraneous that it might actually be damaging to the article if he included it—but he dutifully wrote everything down anyway.  It seemed to make them happy…

            …but after the meeting was over, and everyone was leaving, Arthur found himself being pulled aside by Mandy.  She looked positively livid, glaring at him with a hate that was usually reserved for the most vile of creatures.  “If you do anything to hurt him, I’m going to make you regret it,” she snarled at him.  Then, without a pause, she turned and left, smiling fondly at her ex-husband’s ex-band members as she passed them.

            So she hadn’t been protecting Tommy out of fear of the men from the Committee for Cultural Renewal.  She had been protecting Brian because she still loved him.

 

***

 

            Curt had spent the last 24 hours trying not to think about it.  It was official now.  Arthur was in the empty bedroom, his computer set up on that card table the neighbors had loaned him, and he was working on the story exposing that Brian had become Tommy Stone.

            And once that article was finished…well, he wouldn’t have any more use for Curt, would he?

            But what was going to happen when they broke up?  Curt had only contributed a few hundred dollars to the rent on this apartment, but he had bought all the furniture.  Okay, yeah, he’d had to borrow the money, but it was still money that was loaned to _him_ , not to Arthur.  If they split up…well, he’d just have to kiss that money goodbye, wouldn’t he?  He’d have no use for furniture without an apartment to put it in.  And he couldn’t very well kick Arthur out into the street.  Hell, that wouldn’t even be an option, because Arthur would be the one kicking _him_ out.

            Every time he let his mind wander anywhere near that idea, something started to ache inside Curt.  Despite how hard he had tried to keep himself from caring, he still didn’t want to be dumped.  Not again.  That was, after all, why he had tried to keep from getting involved with anyone again.  If he didn’t care about them, then it wouldn’t hurt when they didn’t care about him.  Meaningless fucking was safe, but anything more than that was asking to be stabbed in the back again.

_Why hadn’t he been more careful?_

            There wasn’t really anything he could do about it now.  The damage was long since done.  But he really couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to him this time.  Where could he go?  He didn’t even have any money these days.

            In an attempt to fight off the case of the shakes that seemed to loom directly in his future, Curt went into the kitchen and got a beer out of the fridge.  He’d have preferred something a lot stronger, but if Arthur caught him drinking hard liquor for no apparent reason, it might get ugly.  Beer was safe.  No one ever batted an eye at it.  Curt would just have to drink a hell of a lot of it if he wanted to numb the pain at all.

            He hadn’t quite half emptied the bottle when Arthur came into the kitchen, too, and fetched himself a bottle as well.

            Curt tried to smile at him, but he doubted it was very convincing.  “How’s the story coming?” he asked.  His own voice sounded strangled to his ears.

            “It’s not,” Arthur sighed.  “Been starin’ at a blank screen all day.”

            “Really?”  Hopefully his voice was level.  “Why’s that?”

            “I keep thinkin’ about everything Mandy was sayin’,” Arthur said, before taking a huge gulp from his bottle.  “About the revenge Tommy would want.  About the revenge Reynolds and the committee might want.  But more than that, I was thinkin’ about what it’d do to his fans.”

            “It’s their own fault for liking his shitty music, right?” Curt replied, trying to chuckle.

            “Think about it, Curt.  Who’s really going to take the news harder?” Arthur retorted.  “Tommy’s fans?  Or _Brian’s_?”

            Curt hesitated a moment.  He’d never looked at it like that before, but he knew better than anyone how someone who had loved Brian—in any context—felt about the way Brian was betraying himself and his former musical career.  “Yeah, they…they’ll hate it.”

            “Worse than that.  They’ll be hurt by it.”  Arthur took another swallow of his beer.  “It won’t mean a bloody thing to Tommy’s fans.  Most of them ‘ave probably never even heard of Brian Slade.  But it’ll be another slap in the face to anyone who still thinks fondly of Brian.  They’re the only ones who’ll be affected by the article.  Tommy’s career won’t even slow down for it.”  He sighed, shaking his head.  “On top of that, think of how the general press will react to the story.  I’m supposed to make it clear that you and Mandy are my primary sources, yeah?  I know the band thought that would make it sound most authentic, but that’s not what everyone else will think.  They’ll write it off as the petty recriminations of bitter exes.  And when they find out about you and me?  Then it’ll be degraded to the childish jealousy of an ex’s new lover.  This story would put a spotlight of all the worst kinds of attention on us.”  Arthur grimaced.  “If I thought we could take down Reynolds, or at least the committee, I wouldn’t mind so much.  I’m willin’ to suffer if it’ll advance the cause of the greater good, and I’m sure Brian’s few remainin’ fans would feel the same way.  But to hurt them—and us!—like that without even accomplishin’ anything?  I don’t think I can do that.”

            Curt smiled at him, even as he tried not to get his own hopes up too high.  “Then don’t,” he said, setting down his unfinished bottle.  “Just let it be.  We got out of their fucking trap.  They don’t have to keep running our lives from the other side of the world.”

            Arthur nodded, with an uncomfortably weak smile.

            After closing the slight distance between them, Curt gently pulled Arthur’s lips to his own, letting the kiss quickly gain in depth and intensity, until they were both having to take breaks to gulp in air to keep from being suffocated by their passion.

            Before long, Arthur had clumsily dropped his own bottle on the counter—not even paying heed that it fell off and shattered on the floor, splashing beer all over their legs—to wrap his arms tightly around Curt, the fingers of one hand tangling in his hair while his other hand clutched at his back.  Not long after that, Curt had to unzip his fly to release some of the gathering, painful pressure.  His unleashed erection was soon butting up against Arthur’s, still contained in his loose khakis.  That just made the need even more powerful than before.

            Curt pulled out of the kiss.  “Let’s go to bed,” he suggested.

            “God, yes,” Arthur moaned.

            They made their way into the bedroom as quickly as they could in their condition, and continued to kiss passionately, even as they attacked each others’ clothing, desperate for the next step.  By the time they were finally both naked, Curt’s desires had reached a boiling point that was rare, even for him.

            “I need to give it to you hard,” Curt said, barely able to breathe through his lust.

            Arthur let out a little noise that sounded pleased, but it wasn’t really a response.

            “Get on the bed, all right?  And I mean _really_ hard, so brace yourself for it!”

            By the time Curt had retrieved the lube and a condom from the drawer of the bedside table, Arthur was already in position, his head and shoulders down on the mattress, thoroughly bracing him.  Despite his urgency, Curt couldn’t resist on seeing him in that position.  Applying a little lubricant to his fingers, he spread Arthur’s cheeks and slipped the fingers inside his ass, getting him ready for the fucking he was about to receive.

            At first, Arthur just sighed in pleasure, but after a few minutes, he opened his eyes and cast a look back at Curt.  “I thought you needed it right away,” he said, his voice almost a chuckle.  “Or were you just eager to play around?”

            Well, that was fucking embarrassing.  “I just wanted to make sure you were gonna enjoy this as much as I am,” Curt claimed, taking his fingers back out and reaching down to fondle Arthur’s erection.

            Arthur groaned in intense pleasure, his breath speeding up to the point that he was almost panting.  Curt hadn’t thought he could get any harder—or more eager for sex—but apparently he could.  He needed this.  Right.  Fucking.  Now.

            Hastily, he grabbed the condom and tore open the wrapper.  By this time, Curt’s hands were shaking so badly with desire that he fumbled the condom as he tried to put it on.  Twice.  After the third time, he crumpled the thing up and threw it away.  “Fuck this,” he grumbled, reaching for the lube.

            As Curt’s bare cock slid inside him, Arthur’s eyes shot open again. “Curt…!”  He sounded a little alarmed, but that faded fast, and soon he was producing his usual moans of ecstasy.

            Of course he was.  This was what sex was _supposed_ to feel like.

            And now that Arthur had proven he _wasn’t_ just in it for a story, how could they waste this by putting a condom between them?

 

***

 

            Somehow the whole world felt different when Arthur woke up.  The sex last night had been magnificent; Arthur had almost forgotten just how much better it felt to _feel_ the spurting as his lover climaxed inside him.  There was something wonderfully reassuring about Curt’s decision to go without a condom.

            And yet it also felt a bit like signing a suicide pact.  If Curt was infected, now Arthur would be, too, and vice-versa.  Of course, given their histories, Curt was far more likely to be infected than Arthur was.  For that reason, Arthur really ought to have resented the fact that Curt hadn’t asked his permission before he stopped playing it safe.  But Arthur couldn’t muster any resentment.  He was still riding the beautiful high of that wonderful sex.

            Slowly, he opened one eye, then let out a mournful sigh.  If only there was time for them to make love again!

            Arthur glanced over his shoulder at Curt.  He was still sleeping soundly, one arm stretched out across Arthur’s hip, his hand dangling dangerously close to Arthur’s willy.  Slipping out from under his arm without waking Curt would be impossible, wouldn’t it?  Yes, surely it would.  But would it be worse to wake him outright, or to accidentally wake him in rising?

            Opting for the latter, Arthur gently slid Curt’s hand aside, and slowly moved away from his warm, naked body.  Curt made an unhappy noise in his sleep, but surprisingly didn’t wake up.  Well, that would make things simpler!

            As quietly as he could, Arthur hurried into the loo and shut the door.  He’d have to do all his business as quietly as possible to keep from waking Curt…

            He got as far as shaving before he thought he heard something on the other side of the door.  Trying not to pay attention, Arthur continued going about his business, and had moved on to brushing his teeth by the time the door opened.

            “Wha…?”  Curt seemed particularly inarticulate this morning…

            “It’s Thursday,” Arthur explained, after spitting into the sink.  “I ‘ave to go to work.”

            Curt scowled.  “That sucks.”

            Arthur nodded, but didn’t bother speaking a reply.  It did, after all, rather go without saying that having to go to work instead of staying home and spending all day every day making love was a terrible chore.  But that was part of being an adult.  The flat wasn’t going to pay for itself, and neither was the food on their table.

            “So, do you have plans for tomorrow night?” Curt asked.

            “Tomorrow?  Actually, yes,” Arthur admitted, feeling a bit sheepish.  He probably should have cleared his plans with Curt first, but…well, it wasn’t as though Curt’s presence was required…  “Why?  Did you ‘ave something you wanted us to do?”

            “Yeah,” Curt said, with an indistinct shrug of his shoulders, “but I guess it doesn’t have to be tomorrow.  What are you planning?”

            “I told you I ran into Ray earlier, right?  I promised him I’d come hear the Creatures playin’ soon, and they’re only on stage on Fridays, so…”  Arthur smiled weakly.  “Feels like I won’t be keepin’ my promise unless it’s tomorrow.”  An irritated expression began to form on Curt’s face, prompting Arthur to continue, his voice starting to rise a little into the ‘panic’ sphere.  “Of course, I was hopin’ you’d come with me.  So no one gets any ideas…”

            Curt sighed, most of the irritation fading from his expression.  “I suppose I’d better, if you’re going either way.”  He shook his head.  “What about tonight, then?”

            “Tonight’s open, though I can’t guarantee when I’ll be home.  Depends how things go at work.”  Arthur had taken out an international subscription to a couple of American newspapers—though the _Herald_ didn’t offer one, of course—to keep up on events on the other side of the Atlantic, and as far as he could tell from those papers, nothing particularly major had happened in America since Monday, but that didn’t mean much.  The Reynolds administration kept a pretty tight leash on the press, after all.  Sometimes the true news about what was going on had to be filtered through the free press in Canada.  He ought to have taken out a subscription to a paper from Toronto or Ottawa, too…

            “All right, just let me know if you’re gonna be late,” Curt said.  “So I can change the reservations.”

            Arthur desperately wanted to ask what Curt was planning—reservations for what?—but since he wasn’t offering the information, he might want it to be a secret, in which case he might get testy if pressed for details.  So Arthur just smiled, and gave him a kiss.  “All right, I’ll be sure to call,” he promised.

            Unfortunately, his promise led directly into more kisses, delaying Arthur’s preparations to the point that he had to rush out of the flat without any breakfast, or he’d be late.  What was it about being back in England that was making him constantly tardy?  He had almost never been late in New York.  Aside from that one time he’d come in at noon…

            Arthur just barely made his bus, so he didn’t arrive at work late, but it was a near thing.  As he sorted through the articles he would have to condense into his column for tomorrow, he found no surprises:  evidently nothing had happened that Reynolds had decided to suppress.  That was good; it meant he could follow the plan he’d already laid out in his head based on the papers he’d read at home over the past few days.

            And that meant two things.  One, he would have no problem getting back to the flat on time.  And two, he would have plenty of time to waste in idle speculation about what Curt wanted them to do that was going to require reservations.

            Most of Arthur’s speculation, of course, assumed that they were dinner reservations at some restaurant.  That was the logical thing, after all.  And yet it wasn’t entirely logical:  since when did Curt Wild ever bother with—or need—dinner reservations?

            By the time he got home that evening, Arthur was barely able to contain his curiosity about what Curt was planning.  He found Curt sitting on the sofa watching the telly, and looking rather glum.  “Is anything wrong?” Arthur asked, taking a seat beside him.

            Curt shrugged, switching the television back off.  “Tomorrow would have been better for it,” he sighed.  “I had to settle.”

            “I’m not sure I’m followin’ you.  ‘Settle?’  What…?”  Arthur couldn’t quite bring himself to ask any more detailed questions.

            “I thought a live show would be better than a movie, but the good ones only have performances on Fridays and Saturdays.  So it has to be a movie.”

            “Oh.”  Was _that_ all he’d been worked up about this morning?  Going to see a show?  Why?  Unless all his publicists had been releasing false information, tomorrow wasn’t Curt’s birthday.  But maybe it was Mandy’s birthday, and they were supposed to be getting together with her?  Except if that was the case, they could do so for lunch instead of dinner…  “Is there something about tomorrow that I don’t know?” Arthur finally asked, finding himself getting almost dizzy from all the conflicting possibilities.

            Curt shook his head with a small, almost shy smile that made Arthur’s insides quiver.  “It just occurred to me that we’ve never been on an actual date…”

            Arthur smiled widely, and kissed him passionately.  “A movie’s just fine, love.  It’s more appropriate for a first date, anyway.”

            “Even the movie’s fucking hard to decide on,” Curt went on, shaking his head.  “It’s like this whole country’s a second-run theatre.”

            Arthur laughed.  “You’re just a spoiled American,” he said, running his fingers through Curt’s hair.

            “It doesn’t bug you that this country gets movies months after they open?” Curt asked, staring at him in surprise.  “On top of the fact that you’ve got almost no channels on television?”

            “You get used to it.”  At least, Arthur assumed that to be the case.  For him, it had been the natural state of things, and he’d had to get used to the dizzying array of entertainment options in New York, with four or five television stations and countless cinemas, not to mention all the live theatres.  Of course, he had barely been able to pay for a single small television, so most of it—particularly the live theatre—had been rather irrelevant as he couldn’t afford it.

            Curt sighed.  “I guess you would, but it’s gonna take awhile!  It’s already killing me.”

            “We’ll just have to get a VCR and some tapes, then,” Arthur suggested.  Another luxury alien to him…  “Once there’s some money comin’ in.”

            “Better than nothing, but it’s not the same thing.”  He shook his head.  “So, which movie that’s been open for ages do you want to see?”

            Arthur did his best to suppress a chuckle.  “You know, there’s also a British film industry.  Could always try a local movie.”

            “Yeah.  Or we could find a porn theatre and—”

            “No.”  That was absolutely not a good idea.  Arthur hadn’t had his job nearly long enough to be willing to risk losing it in _that_ kind of a scandal.  And Curt Wild going into a theatre showing pornography would definitely be enough of a scandal to make the tabloids, especially if he was going in with another man.

            Curt started grumbling about having his idea rejected, and he continued to grumble until he suddenly announced that they had to leave right away or they’d miss their dinner reservations.  And yet he wouldn’t actually let them leave right away.  Instead, he led Arthur into the bedroom and pulled a clothing bag out of the closet.  “Here, put this on first,” Curt said, handing the bag to Arthur.

            “What is it?”  The bag was opaque and full length; it could have been virtually anything.  Terrifying memories of the time the Flaming Creatures had tried to get Arthur to dress up as Carmen Miranda ran uncomfortably through his head.

            Curt laughed at him.  “What’s with the look of terror?  Don’t you trust me?”

            “It’s not that…”

            “It’s just a nicer outfit than the rumpled crap you always wear,” Curt promised him.  “Nothing you couldn’t wear to work.”

            Trying to be trusting, Arthur did his best to keep his face level as he opened the bag.  Thankfully, Curt had been telling the truth, nearly:  the bag contained a pale green button-down shirt, and a pair of black jeans.  Arthur would never be able to get away with wearing denim to work, but the shirt would be easily accepted at all but the most formal of occasions.  As Arthur changed clothes, he couldn’t help reflecting that he should have noticed earlier that Curt was dressed a bit nicer than usual.  Though his clothes did nothing to make him look more reputable, considering his hair, and the fact that he was currently leering at Arthur in a particularly shocking fashion.

            “That looks better,” Curt said, nodding his head approvingly, as Arthur finished changing.

            “The trousers are too tight,” Arthur objected.

            “They look fine from out here.”

            “That isn’t the point.”

            “What else could be the point?” Curt countered.  “I want you to look good—and those pants really highlight your ass.”

            Arthur could feel himself blushing, but tried to shake it off.  “If we’re goin’ anywhere while I’m wearin’ these trousers, you’d best behave yourself,” he insisted.  “I’ll do myself an injury if I get a stiffy in these things.”

            Curt started laughing at that.  He tried a couple of times to reply, but was laughing too hard to permit speech.  Eventually Arthur sighed deeply.  “Weren’t you worried about us missin’ the reservations?” he pointed out.

            That finally made Curt stop laughing, and they hurried out of the flat.  They were running late now, and had to take a taxi to the restaurant, an extra expense that Arthur objected to, but of course Curt didn’t listen to him.  It was quite a nice restaurant, all too expensive for their limited budget.  The maître d’ recognised Curt as soon as they arrived, and commented on how nice it was to see him back in England, with an unspoken comment written on his face about seeing him with a new boyfriend.

            So this was someplace Curt used to go with Brian?

            The thought ate at Arthur all through dinner.  What did it signify that Curt had brought him to such a place?  Was he wanting Arthur to replace Brian, or did he just not know any other places to go in London?  The city certainly had no shortage of nice, romantic restaurants, but how many of them Curt knew about was a mystery that Arthur had no idea how to solve.  (Especially seeing as Arthur himself was rather lacking in familiarity with expensive eateries.)

            Unconsciously, he found himself fingering the pin Curt had given him.  Its darker, emerald green looked beautiful against the pastel green blouse.  Curt had probably picked that shirt for just that reason.  But the pin had once been Brian’s.  Maybe that _did_ mean Curt just wanted a surrogate for Brian.  And yet when he had given it to Arthur, he hadn’t seemed to expect it to lead even to another one-night stand, let alone a steady relationship.

            Of course, there was also the question of just how ‘steady’ their relationship really was.  Certainly, they had been sleeping together for months, and were now living together, but this was their first date.  And despite how many times Arthur had told Curt that he loved him, Curt had never once reciprocated, or even said that he _liked_ Arthur.  On Curt’s end, this could still just be hollow sex.

            Sex.  That was it.  Maybe Curt was feeling guilty about not using a condom last night.

            Maybe he already knew he was infected—or at least knew that a former lover was—and this was his way of belatedly apologising for his impatience having cost Arthur his life.

            “Can we talk?” Curt asked.  Shite, that was it, wasn’t it?  He was going to tell Arthur that they were both doomed to suffer and die…

            “Of course,” Arthur said, trying to smile.  He didn’t want to let on that he had figured out what was going on.  “What is it?”

            “What is it?” Curt repeated, looking annoyed.  “We’ve been sitting here in fucking silence for twenty fucking minutes!  I’m gonna lose my goddamn mind at this rate!”

            “Oh.”  Arthur laughed nervously.  “I’m sorry.  I suppose I let my thoughts run away with me…”

            “Okay, fine.  So what were you thinking about?”

            Arthur coughed uncomfortably.  Answering that question with complete honesty would be a disaster.  “Mostly, I suppose I was just tryin’ to figure out why you suddenly wanted to go on a date after all this time.”  Not a lie, but safe.

            “You could have just asked instead of sitting there like a lump trying to figure it out,” Curt said, scowling at him.

            “I’m sorry.”

            Curt shook his head.  “It’s not like it’s been an option for very long,” he said, as if that was an obvious answer.

            “But we’ve been—”

            “You _know_ it was impossible back in New York,” Curt reminded him, an uncomfortably harsh note in his voice.

            Arthur nodded, with a deep sigh.  He was not, honestly, convinced that Curt’s paranoia about the level of surveillance he had been under in America was entirely accurate.  But there was no point in mentioning that _now_.  “So there’s no special significance to it?”

            “Not really.”

            ‘Not really’ implied that there _was_ at least some way in which it did have special significance.  But…perhaps that was just Arthur’s training as a journalist causing him to over-analyse everything?

            “Why?” Curt went on, after Arthur had been poring over his answer for some time.  “Did you want me to have some special reason for it?”

            “No one does anything without _some_ reason for it,” Arthur said.

            “I do.  All the time.  Ask anyone.”

            Arthur laughed.  “I don’t think you should sound quite so proud of that.”

            “See, that’s your problem,” Curt replied, shaking his head.  “You think too much.”

            “Maybe I do,” Arthur admitted.  What else could he say?  It was true that he spent more time thinking than doing, after all.

            Their talk moved on to lighter topics soon enough, mostly discussing what movie they should go see.  Arthur hadn’t been paying enough attention to the listings in the paper to be able to suggest anything, unfortunately.  It had always been his usual practice to just turn up at the cinema and hope something was playing that he’d enjoy.  Especially back in Manchester.  Of course, back then even if he didn’t enjoy the film, he could at least count on enjoying being away from his family for two hours.  And that alone had been more than worth the price of admission.

            Eventually, they had to settle for Arthur’s traditional method, which meant that they got to the cinema and found that the only thing starting within an hour was a small local picture neither of them had ever heard of.  On the thought that something was better than nothing, they decided to chance it.  And, fortunately enough, it actually turned out to be quite charming.  Not, perhaps, the sort of movie that either of them would have gone to see under normal circumstances, but it made a fine cap for the evening’s outing.

            Of course, as soon as they got home, they headed straight to the bedroom, quite ready to strip off each others’ clothes and spend at least half the night making love.  Once they were both naked, they spent a long time just standing beside the bed, kissing passionately.  As much as he wanted to move on to the pleasures of sex, Arthur just wasn’t quite ready to stop kissing yet.  Curt was so good at it…

            After a little while, Curt pulled out of their embrace, and looked at him with a fond smile.  “So, would you say it was a successful date?” he asked, an almost teasing tone to his voice.

            “Wonderful,” Arthur agreed, kissing him again.  “It was wonderful.”

            “How close is that to perfect?”

            Arthur laughed.  “Plenty close.”  He pulled Curt into a tight embrace as he spoke, kissing him with a deep and powerful urgency that was only increased by the enhanced sensation of their cocks pressing up against each other.

            They kept kissing for several minutes, until Arthur suddenly felt Curt’s hands on his erection, accompanied by a cool, wet sensation.  Pulling out of the kiss, Arthur looked down and saw that Curt was spreading lubricant not on his own cock, but on Arthur’s.  Then…!

            “I love you,” Arthur said, looking deeply into Curt’s eyes and giving him one more kiss before beginning the love-making.


	8. Chapter 8

            There was something pretty weird about waking up with someone else’s arms wrapped around him from behind.  Not bad, but definitely weird.  What _was_ bad was the fact that Curt’s ass was actually pretty sore; Arthur had been _really_ enthusiastic about getting to be on top for a change.  It had felt good at the time, but it had been a long time since Curt had let anyone do that to him, and apparently his body didn’t remember how to handle it.  The soreness should pass soon enough, though.  He remembered that much.

            Soon, he felt Arthur moving up closer behind him, his arm tightening around Curt’s waist.  “Morning,” Curt said, glancing over his shoulder in Arthur’s direction.

            “Good morning,” Arthur agreed, before he started kissing the back of Curt’s shoulder.  “Can we make love again now?” he asked between kisses.

            Curt laughed.  So the secret to making Arthur permanently horny was letting him get to do the fucking?  Good to know for the future…  “After breakfast,” he suggested, realizing that he was actually pretty hungry.

            Arthur let out a disappointed noise, but didn’t argue about it.  He was usually pretty good about that, after all.  In fact, Curt was probably getting spoiled by his tendency to agree to everything.  That might make things awkward later.

            Of course, once they finished eating, they decided that it might not be a good idea to go straight back to bed—not good for the body to have a work-out on a full stomach—so they took a leisurely shower together, carefully soaping up every inch of each other’s body…after which they needed to go back to bed even more than they had before the shower, though Arthur was quickly disappointed that he wouldn’t get to top again so soon.  No point in letting _him_ get spoiled.  Besides, Curt’s ass definitely couldn’t take it.

            They were still napping after their blissful sex when the phone rang.  The damn thing was on Curt’s side of the bed for some reason, so he had to be the one to answer it, but he was fucking pissed about it.  “What?!” he demanded into the phone.

            There was a slight sound on the other end of the line, not quite a gasp, but close.  “Well, aren’t you jolly sunshine this morning?” Trevor’s voice said, with a slight chuckle.

            Curt sighed.  “Sorry.  But you woke me up.”

            “You have any idea how late it is?”

            “We can go back to bed and fuck whenever we want, so piss off!”  Curt’s exclamation made Arthur start chuckling, and cuddling up against him until his head was resting on Curt’s shoulder.

            “Yeah, I remember when it used to be like that,” Trevor sighed.  “But don’t forget about work.  I’ve been talking to the manager of a club where we might perform, but he wants to talk to you in person before he’ll sign any paperwork.  Told him we’d come by tomorrow afternoon, before the club opens.”

            “Sure, no problem.”  Not like Curt had any plans.

            “Meanwhile, how’s the article coming?” Trevor continued.  “Your boy doing a good job with it?”

            Shit.  Curt hadn’t thought about that.  “Actually, he—we—thought it might not be such a good idea to write that story after all.  A lot of repercussions that—”

            “We all agreed it had to be done,” Trevor snarled.  “You two included.  The only reason we didn’t have it written years ago was that we thought maybe you and Mandy had some reason to keep quiet.  Now that you don’t, there’s nothing that’s going to stop us from telling the world what Brian’s been doing.  You tell your little boyfriend that if he doesn’t write it, we’ll hire someone else to do it!”  With that, he slammed the phone down, causing a horrible ringing sound in Curt’s ear.

            “Well, fuck.”  Curt put the receiver back down on its base.

            “I’m sorry,” Arthur sighed.  “I should ‘ave thought of something better to tell them to explain it.”

            “He’ll do it, you know,” Curt said, his voice little more than a grumble.  “I’ve never seen them so pissed as they were at that meeting.”  He should have realized that they weren’t going to accept a simple change of plans.

            Curt looked over at Arthur’s face just in time to catch his expression becoming clouded by worry.  “I…” he started, then stopped again immediately, biting his lip.

            “You want to write it after all?” Curt asked, trying not to sound disappointed.

            “I don’t know.”  Arthur moved away a bit, rolling over onto his back.  “It seems pointless.  Worse than that, it seems self-destructive.”

            “Then maybe we should just let Trevor have his way, let him try and find someone else to write it,” Curt suggested, rolling onto his side to be able to look at Arthur more easily.  “He won’t find it such an easy task as he thinks.”

            “Sure he will,” Arthur chuckled.  “Any journalist would leap at the chance to write such an exclusive.  Well, almost any,” he added, with a small smile.  “The problem is, would he go to someone who’d do a good job of it, and wouldn’t make things out to be worse than they are?  And what would the story say about you?”

            “You mean you want to write it.”  Curt tried to keep his disappointment out of his voice.  Just when he was positive that Arthur was on the level and really cared about him, this had to go and happen…

            “Yes and no,” Arthur said, looking up at the ceiling.  “I don’t want it to be written, not by me or anyone else.  But if it’ll be written regardless, I’d feel more secure if it was in my hands so I’d know it wasn’t bein’ mishandled.”  He shook his head.  “The thing is, I don’t…I don’t want my name attached to it.  I don’t want to be known as the petty boyfriend who decided he had to go and break the hearts of all the remainin’ fans of his lover’s ex.”

            Curt wasn’t entirely sure if that was a reassuring reason or not.  It came out sounding kind of selfish.  “So…what do you want to do?”

            Arthur grimaced.  “I guess…I guess I’d better write it.  But we’ll let Trevor deal with publishin’ it.  And he can claim to ‘ave written it himself, or with the other members of the band, or…I don’t care who he says wrote it, as long as it’s not either of us.  We’ll be eaten alive if either of our names is attached to it.  And it can’t appear in any paper I’m associated with, either.”

            Well, at least he wasn’t trying to use it to further his career.  That had been the main worry…hadn’t it?  Curt scowled, trying to remember just what he had been so convinced Arthur had wanted from that story in the first place.  Had it been about his career, or had it been just the thrill of exposing such a deep, dark secret, or…?  None of them really felt quite natural, somehow.

            “Curt?”  Arthur’s voice sounded almost worried.

            “What?”

            “Is something wrong?  You look upset.”

            Curt tried to laugh, but it came out more like a cough.  “It’s nothing,” he said, shaking his head.

            Arthur didn’t look convinced of that, not at all.  “What do you want to do now?” he asked.  His voice was soft, and faded almost to imperceptibility halfway through the question.

            Curt sighed.  No matter what Arthur was thinking about that article, the whole idea had certainly put Curt off the idea of any further sex.  “Guess we should get out of bed.”

            Arthur laughed.  “That’s usually a good idea,” he agreed.  “It’s almost time for lunch.”

            “Yeah, that too.  But…did you want to start working right away, or…?”

            Arthur sat up while Curt was talking, and shrugged his shoulders as he turned to look back down at him.  “I don’t know.  I guess I probably should.  Get it over with.”  He frowned.  “You should call Trevor back.  Let him know he doesn’t ‘ave to find someone else to write it.”

            “Yeah.”  Though changing his mind within ten minutes was not exactly on the list of things Curt wanted to do, ever.  But there’d be no point in Arthur writing the article if someone else wrote it first.

            After getting dressed, Curt called the number for Trevor’s shop.  The voice that answered the phone belonged to that little red-headed girl, Sandra.  “I want to speak to Trevor,” Curt told her.

            “Yeah, Mr. Finn’s not here right now,” Sandra said, after an uncomfortable pause.  Like she’d been told that she wasn’t supposed to let Curt talk to Trevor.  Damn, he was really pissed if he wouldn’t even take Curt’s calls.

            Curt sighed.  No point in calling her on it.  She was just doing what her boss told her to do.  And making an enemy of her right now would probably be a bad idea.  “Fine, just take a message for him,” he said.  “Tell him we’ve talked about what he said, and decided Arthur would write the article after all, so he doesn’t need to find someone else.  Are you writing this down?”  The last thing he wanted was for the girl to fuck up the message and make everything worse.

            “Um, yeah…”  Translation:  ‘no.’

            “Make sure he gets the message right away,” Curt added.  The sooner she told Trevor, the less chance there was that she’d forget the details and fuck it up.  Hopefully.  Speaking of fucking things up, he realized he’d left out something pretty important himself.  “This is Curt Wild,” he added.  “Make sure you tell him that part, too.”

            “Yeah, I know who you are,” Sandra said.  As if she wanted to make absolutely sure he knew she’d been told not to take his calls.  “Um, you know, Mr. Finn made me listen to some of your records,” she added.  “They were actually pretty good.  Much better than the weird shit Mr. Finn used to make.”

            “Thanks,” Curt said, resisting the urge to add ‘I think,’ to the end.  It hadn’t really come out as much of a compliment, but he was pretty sure she’d meant it as one.

            There wasn’t much else to say, so soon enough Curt found himself heading to the second bedroom to see what Arthur was doing.  To his surprise, Arthur was jotting down notes in his ratty little notebook, rather than using his computer.  “What are you doing?” Curt asked.

            “Tryin’ to outline what to say.  And what not to say.  Tryin’ to remember everything that was something only you or Mandy knew.  I don’t want to use anything the Venus in Furs didn’t know.”

            “That sounds really fucking hard,” Curt commented, sitting down on the other folding chair.  They needed to get some real furniture for this room.  No point in a second bed, of course, but a real table for Arthur’s computer, and maybe a better amp for Curt’s guitar…

            “It’s not that difficult.”

            “But why bother?” Curt asked.  “I mean, no one’s gonna believe me and Mandy weren’t consulted, since the article didn’t appear until after we left the country.”

            “Yeah,” Arthur sighed.  Then he suddenly grinned.  “Maybe we should go on holiday somewhere before the article gets printed.”

            “Like having an alibi for a murder?  Shit, I’m down with that,” Curt laughed.  “Ever been to Germany?”

            Arthur smiled, and shook his head.  “The only foreign country I’ve been to is America.”

            “So, you think you can get some time off so we can spend a few weeks in Berlin?  I’m sure some of my old friends are still alive.”

            “Shite, that’s a depressing way to put it.”

            Curt shook his head.  “The main thing we had in common was drugs, so…”

            “So it’s probably better not to meet up with them again,” Arthur said firmly.  “And I doubt I can get time off so soon after gettin’ hired anyway.  As much as I’d like us to go on holiday together…it would ‘ave to wait a long time before I could get away with it.”

            “Wasn’t it your idea in the first place?”

            “I wasn’t bein’ serious.”

            Curt sighed, and fished his cigarettes out of his pocket.  He suddenly really needed a smoke.  “Fine, whatever.  What do you want to do about lunch?”

            “We should probably eat in,” Arthur said, with a sad little smile.  “Until you’re actively bringin’ in money with performances, our finances aren’t too good.”

            Curt grimaced, though Arthur probably couldn’t see the gesture; he was in the middle of lighting his cigarette, so his hands were blocking his lips from Arthur’s view.  Depressing as the idea of having to eat crappy food at home because they were broke was, there was also something warmly comforting about the drably domestic way Arthur was talking about ‘their finances.’  Curt had never been in that kind of relationship before…

            “Especially since we’ll be goin’ out tonight,” Arthur went on.  “I doubt the club where the Creatures are playin’ is cheap.”

            “It wasn’t all that pricey ten years ago,” Curt told him.  “Though I guess it wasn’t exactly ‘cheap,’ either.”  He sighed.  “Yeah, I guess we probably shouldn’t eat out for lunch.”

            Arthur seemed so pleased that Curt was agreeing with him that Curt couldn’t bring himself to keep going and point out that he didn’t really give a shit about money, because there was always more of it out there.  He could explain that some other time.

            Even though that meant eating cold sandwiches for lunch.

            Worse than that, Curt had to spend the whole afternoon sitting alone in front of the television, watching what little was on, while Arthur worked on the article.  Every so often, Curt would turn off the sound on the TV and just listen to the clacking of the keys.  Sounded like Arthur wasn’t having writer’s block on the story anymore…

            They headed to the club around seven, though Curt had insisted on picking out what Arthur was going to wear, a fact that had Arthur complaining vehemently.  But considering they were on their way to meet up with four of Arthur’s ex-boyfriends, there was no way Curt was letting him leave the house looking decent!  He _had_ to be wearing his ugliest, most worn-out clothes.  No way he could wear anything else.

            The club wasn’t much changed from ten years ago, except in terms of the crowd inside.  Back then, it had been the kind of place where he and Brian had been able to spend time in peace; everyone knew who they were, but they were all too cool to pester them like ordinary fans.  Actually, now that Curt thought about it, that club was where Brian had first introduced him to Jack Fairy.  God, Curt had felt pathetic sitting at the table with the two of them.  They were both so dainty and pretty and classy—Brian with his champagne, and Jack with his cocktail—and there was Curt with his big clunky hands and his beer and smokes and his rumpled T-shirt.  Maybe that was why he hated the way Arthur dressed so much:  it was too much like the way Curt dressed.  He was used to dating men who dressed up for him.

            The people in the club now, though, they seemed like a lot of posers.  Everyone smiled at them in a friendly manner, as if they were cool with seeing two men on a date, but then stared at them out of the corners of their eyes.  This wasn’t the happening spot it had been ten years ago.  This was a place for yuppies to go to pretend they were visiting the ‘70s, to pretend they understood what their older brothers and sisters had experienced.  No wonder the place had hired the Flaming Creatures:  how better to pretend it was still the ‘70s than to hire a washed-up band trying to recapture its glory days?

            Still, everything seemed tolerable until the Flaming Creatures took the stage.  Not that Curt would have minded their show if he’d been alone:  they had always been good musicians, and they hadn’t lost their touch.  They had even toned down the weirder aspects of their costumes.  But Arthur’s reaction!  It had been a long time since Curt had gotten that jealous.  He really wouldn’t have thought himself still capable of it.

            About halfway through their second song, Arthur got to his feet.  “I’m goin’ over where they can see me,” he said, looking at Curt.  “Promise me you won’t come over right away.  Give me a few minutes alone with them, all right?”

            Curt _really_ wanted to refuse.  But Arthur’s big brown eyes were looking at him in such a pleading way that somehow he couldn’t say no.  Despite how much he wanted to.  Instead, he just watched as Arthur headed over towards the stage.

            At first, they didn’t seem to notice him.  Then one of the motherfuckers actually blew him a fucking kiss!  Curt wanted to go over there and choke the life out of the guy.  He got to his feet immediately, of course, but—as if he had heard Curt moving—Arthur turned to look at him, and gestured him to sit down again.  He looked terribly hurt, which only made Curt angrier, until he realized it was _him_ who was causing that expression, not the Creatures.  Then what choice did he have but to sit down again?

            If he was going to tell himself that Arthur was being honest when he claimed to be in love, then he had to start acting like he believed it, right?  And that probably included trusting him not to go around flirting with all his old exes.  No matter how heavily they were flirting with him.

            By the time the song was over, all four of the Creatures had seen Arthur, and they all looked way too fucking happy about it.  Instead of launching into the next song, the lead singer smiled at the audience.  “We’ll finish our set in a few,” he told them through the microphone.  “Seems an old friend of ours has escaped the jaws of Big Brother, so we simply must have a chat with him,” he went on, causing the audience to chuckle.  Yeah, it was real funny for those who didn’t have to try living under the fucker’s despotic rule.  Not so funny once you’ve lived it.

            The band quickly abandoned their instruments up on stage, and surrounded Arthur.

            Curt checked his watch.  How many minutes was ‘a few,’ anyway?  Two?  Three?  Five?  No way it was more than five.  He wasn’t about to put up with that.  In fact, Curt wasn’t even sure he could last much more than two.

            It wasn’t that he was so jealous he couldn’t see straight.

            It was just that those guys didn’t even know that Arthur wasn’t available.  Curt should never have let Arthur go over there alone; they were probably getting all sorts of ideas because they couldn’t see that Arthur was already spoken for.

            They were really all over him, too.  One giant hug over there.  Seemed like all four of them were in between Curt and Arthur, so he couldn’t even _see_ if they were doing anything they shouldn’t be.  For all he could tell, they might have been feeling him up, or trying to dry hump him through his clothes.  No, Curt would probably be able to see _that_ , but there was no way he’d be able to see it if they were touching anything that didn’t belong to them.

            They probably were.  They were probably all over his ass, and sliding their hands down inside the front of those loose slacks, and…

            It hadn’t been much more than a minute and a half, but Curt couldn’t take it any longer.  This was just going to have to do.

            Curt got up and headed over there quick enough that people were jumping out of his way.  Good.  The less interference the better.

            Curt elbowed one of the Creatures aside.  “All right, that’s enough.  There’s nobody to see here,” he growled at them, putting a possessive arm around Arthur.

            “Curt, calm down…”

            The Creatures were all staring at him, agog.  What, had Arthur never told them about what happened between them ten years ago?

            “Suppose I should have seen that coming,” one of them sighed.

            Another one nodded, and grumbled something unintelligible.

            “Well, that’s wonderful,” another one said.  What the fuck were their names again?  “I’m glad you finally got your hands on him again,” he added, elbowing Arthur playfully in the ribs.

            “Pearl, it’s not that simple,” Arthur objected weakly.  Okay, so that dude’s name was Pearl.  One name down, three to go.

            “Let’s sit down, and Arthur can tell us all about what he’s been up to for the last six years over a pint,” the lead suggested.

            Curt wasn’t entirely keen on that plan, but it seemed better than standing around in the middle of the club while everyone stared _and_ eavesdropped on them.  So they all headed back to the table where Curt and Arthur had been sitting, and sat down.  The Flaming Creatures all ordered drinks—they’d better not be expecting Curt to pay for _their_ drinks!—and started hounding Arthur with questions about what he had gotten up to in New York.

            Since he didn’t really seem to have anything to say in the conversation, Curt spent most of it trying to remember what their names were.  He _used_ to know, but that was ten years ago, when he was still pretty fucked up.

            By the time he finally figured out all their names, some bland-looking middle aged man in a suit was hurrying towards their booth, looking pissed.  Curt guessed he was the manager of the club even before he started haranguing the Creatures for dereliction of duty.  Halfway through his speech, the man stopped, his jaw falling open a little as he stared at Curt.  Well, at least he actually knew the period his club was mimicking.

            The manager cleared his throat slightly.  “Yes, well, I suppose I can see why you were excited,” he admitted weakly, “but unless he’s planning on joining you on stage, I am really going to have to insist that you finish your performance before you do your catching up.”  Then he looked at Curt with a hopeful expression.

            “I’m not dressed for a performance,” Curt said, shaking his head.  He was hardly in the mood for it, either, but there was no point in explaining that.  Or even in explaining that the manager was wrong about who the Creatures wanted to catch up with.

            The manager nodded glumly, and left as soon as Malcolm promised they’d get back up on the stage right away.  Naturally, before they would leave the table, the entire band demanded that Arthur promise to stay for their whole set so they could keep talking as long as they wanted.  He didn’t try to worm out of it, not even a little bit!  The thought of what might have happened if Curt had let Arthur come on his own was like a kick in the teeth.

            As soon as the Flaming Creatures were safely back on the stage, Arthur slid even closer to Curt, slipping his arms around him.  “You don’t have to be jealous, love,” he whispered quietly.  “No one can compare to you,” he added, then started nibbling on Curt’s ear.

            Fuck.  How was he supposed to stay pissed off when _that_ was going on?

            But from the sound of it, they’d probably be there all fucking night.  That’d be plenty of time for Curt to get angry—and jealous—all over again.

            Curt decided that Arthur was going to owe him some really fantastic sex to make up for this.  Something a little kinky, even.

 

***

 

            It had been hard for Arthur to get up again after last night’s excitement.  There was something fantastic—and strangely comforting—about seeing Curt get that jealous over him.  The fact that he had wanted to placate his jealousy with intense sex had been delightful at the time, but it meant that they really hadn’t gotten much sleep, and now Arthur was still exhausted.  Hardly the right state to be writing a complex article in, but what else could he do?  He wasn’t sure how long he would have to work on it, after all.

            In truth, he was still a bit uncertain about the propriety of writing it at all.  Propriety and wisdom.  It seemed unethical—not to mention unprofessional!—to write a story that he was so very close to.  And it was decidedly foolish to write it, given the negative scrutiny Curt—and therefore Arthur as well, given their current relations—would be under after the article was released to the public.  Not to mention the possibility of attempted vengeance by the Committee for Cultural Renewal—though hopefully it would be helpless so long as they never returned to the US—and by Tommy himself.

            But more than any of that, Arthur wasn’t sure it was a good idea to write it because of the way Curt started acting strangely every time the idea of exposing Brian’s secret came up.  He had seemed so pleased by the idea of Arthur not writing it!  That in itself had been a little worrying—did Curt still love Brian, as Mandy did, and want to protect him, despite all he had done?—and his obvious disappointment when Arthur decided to write it anyway just encouraged the belief that there was something not right going on.  But he had seemed a little placated by Arthur’s insistence that he couldn’t be publically associated with the piece, so maybe…?  No, no matter how many times Arthur turned the matter over in his head, it never quite made sense.  Curt seemed to enjoy confusing him.

            But that was fine, so long as Curt also continued to enjoy sleeping with him.  The worry was what was going to happen when Curt tired of him altogether.

            This was hardly the time to worry about that.  Besides, after that show of jealousy last night—which had given every indication of being real, not merely an act—it was hard to believe that Curt wasn’t at least a little serious about him.  Especially since he had allowed Arthur to have a turn at doing the shagging.

            Ultimately, Arthur just had to set his private life aside, knuckle down and _work_.

            He’d had to do that for most of the last ten years, after all, so it shouldn’t be any more difficult now than it had been previously.  Right?

            He had made decent progress by the time Curt came in to talk to him.  “So, it’s gonna be lunchtime soon,” Curt said, with a deep sigh.

            “Did you want to order in?” Arthur suggested, even though they really shouldn’t, from a financial viewpoint.

            “Actually, I’m going out.”

            “You, not we?”

            Curt nodded.  “Trevor hasn’t called me back.  He must still be pissed.  So I’m gonna go talk to him in person.”  He grimaced.  “Apologising is probably gonna be in order.  I may have to say stuff I don’t want you to hear.”  He might have only meant for the sake of his own pride, but to Arthur’s ears, it suggested denigrations of their relationship, or of Arthur himself, and caused a gnawing feeling in his gut.  “So I have to go alone.”

            Arthur nodded.  What else could he do but agree?  Arguing wouldn’t accomplish anything.

            Curt smiled, and gave him a kiss.  “Assuming we can make up our differences, hopefully I’ll come back with a contract for a series of live gigs.”

            “That’d be great.”  More for the chance of seeing Curt performing again than for the money.  Arthur wasn’t naïve enough to think Curt was going to get paid much by a nightclub.  The sheer fact that he was going to be performing at some local club on a weekly basis meant that to the club owners’ thinking, he was ‘washed up’ and therefore worth only minimal salary.

            As soon as he heard the door close behind Curt as he left the flat, Arthur felt a cold wave wash over him.  It wasn’t quite melancholy, but it was unpleasantly close.  It was bitter, miserable, and encouraged idleness.  Under its influence, Arthur found himself having even more trouble fighting his way through the article.  Stopping for lunch felt more like an excuse than a necessity, and he wasn’t sure he’d really start up again after he ate.

            After his drab little meal, Arthur started preparing a fresh pot of tea, insisting to himself that it was necessary to fight off indigestion.  It was certainly useful to fend off the need to go into the other room, turn his computer back on and start working again.

            He was on his second or third cup—he hadn’t really been paying attention—when the bell rang.  Could Curt have forgotten his keys?  But he hadn’t really been gone long enough to have met with the owner of the club.  Surely Trevor wasn’t still cross with him?

            Suddenly concerned, Arthur hurried to answer the door.  To his surprise, though, it wasn’t Curt on the other side:  it was Mandy.

            “Oh, um, Ms. Slade, er, Curt’s not here right now,” Arthur stammered, unsure what to say to her.  She was probably still irate with him for agreeing to write the article…

            “I came to get my other bags,” Mandy assured him, “and I don’t need Curt’s help for that.”

            Arthur nodded uncomfortably, and stepped aside so she could enter the flat.

            “You don’t have to be so polite, you know,” Mandy added as she entered.  “I’m not an interview subject anymore.  And you’re Curt’s boyfriend; you being so polite is almost unnatural.”

            “I’m not sure if…well…your ex-husband’s ex-boyfriend’s new…it’s hardly a close relation, is it?”  Arthur knew his words were insanely awkward, but he didn’t know how else to phrase it.  It didn’t feel right, the idea of addressing her as casually as if he actually knew her.

            She chuckled even as Arthur was shutting the door again.  “Yes, he’s my ex-husband’s former lover, but Curt is also my friend,” Mandy assured him.  “It’s as simple as that.”

            That didn’t seem at all simple to Arthur, but he wouldn’t feel quite right saying so.  “I’ll help you carry the bags,” he offered instead.  “Er, but how are you gettin’ them to—”

            “My friend’s waiting in her car out front,” Mandy assured him, with a chuckle.  “I’ve rented a small flat not far from her place.  To wait out the storm before I go back home.”

            Arthur found himself fighting the urge to fidget.  She was being awfully calm about it, considering how angry she had seemed before.  “Ah…about that…”  He cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “Some things have changed.”

            “Oh?”

            “Assumin’ Curt’s been able to patch things up with Trevor, the article will be a little different than we discussed, and it’ll be published as if Trevor or one of the others in the band wrote it.”

            “Patch things up?  What happened?”

            Uncomfortably, Arthur did his best to sum up the quarrel in as few words as possible.

            Mandy listened in silence, her face unreadable.  There was a bit of a pause before she spoke again, just long enough to amplify Arthur’s discomfort.  “What’s going to happen after the article’s published?” she asked, a hard edge to her voice.

            Arthur shrugged.  “Depends where Trevor manages to publish it, I’d think.  Even if he manages to get it printed somewhere with prominence here, I doubt it’ll ‘ave much impact in America.  Probably won’t do much to hurt Tommy Stone’s reputation or career.”  It would just devastate all of Brian Slade’s remaining fans.  Which was exactly why they shouldn’t be publishing it…

            Mandy smiled tightly.  “That’s not what I meant.”

            “What else could you mean?”

            “I know what reporters are like when they’re chasing a big story.  Once they get it, they move on.”

            Arthur stared at her blankly.  What in the world did she think she was on about?  No one was chasing this story.  Arthur was desperately wishing he could escape from it, in fact.  “I don’t understand,” he finally said.

            “What’s going to happen between you and Curt?” she said, her eyes narrowing as if she was accusing him of something vile.

            He sighed, shaking his head.  “I doubt Curt will still be wastin’ his time with me by then,” he admitted, as much as he hated to face up to that reality.  “Once he’s back up on stage and remembers how many people want him…why would he stay with me?  I’ve got nothing to offer him.  There are younger and better lookin’ people than me around.  Curt’d be mad to stay.”

            Mandy’s eyes widened, then she laughed.  “I think you two may have been made for each other,” she concluded, shaking her head.

            “What?”

            But Mandy didn’t explain; she just headed into the back room for her bags, as if she hadn’t left such an enigmatic—and obviously mistaken—statement lingering in the air.  As he helped her carry her bags out to the boot of her friend’s car, Arthur tried to coax her into telling him what she had meant, but she was resolutely silent on the matter.

            Once they were picking up the last two bags, Arthur tried to broach the other subject, the one she had been pointedly avoiding this whole time.  “No matter how little effect it has on his new career, when Brian finds out about the article, he’s going to be upset.”

            Mandy’s expression seemed stunned, but there was also a disappointment in her eyes that surprised Arthur.  “Obviously,” she said.  “Isn’t that the point of it?”

            “Well…I don’t even know what the point of it is,” Arthur admitted.  Upsetting him had been the point of it when Arthur had shouted out that question at the stage door back in February, but this article didn’t seem to have any point other than voicing the grievances of the Venus in Furs.  “But you seemed…less than pleased by the idea before…”

            “When did I ever say anything to suggest that?”

            “What?  But…you said…earlier, you said if I did anything to hurt him, you’d—”

            “You thought I meant _Brian_?” Mandy exclaimed, laughing.  “Oh, you really are precious, aren’t you?  I’m beginning to see where Curt’s coming from.  Lucky for him I don’t care for younger men.”

            Flummoxed, Arthur tried to ask her what she was talking about now, but nothing intelligible passed through his lips.  Maybe that friend of hers had introduced Mandy to some odd new drug?  She didn’t really seem high, but she certainly wasn’t making any sense…

            He never did manage to ask her what she meant, and soon she was driving off again, leaving a terribly confused Arthur to continue to work on his article.


	9. Chapter 9

            Curt wasn’t completely satisfied as he got back to the apartment.  Nothing had really been settled quite the way he wanted it.  It hadn’t gone wrong, exactly, but it hadn’t really gone _right_ , either.  He wasn’t sure what he should tell Arthur.  Would it be better to pretend everything was cool?  The guy had his own problems to deal with, after all; he didn’t need Curt’s problems piled on top of them.

            Then again, he’d also been counting on the money from those live gigs, just like Curt had been counting on the money from that article.  Maybe it was better to be upfront about it…

            Arthur was in the back room, working at his computer when Curt found him.  Before he could even wonder how the article was coming along, Curt realized something was different about the room.  “Where’s Mandy’s stuff?”  Her bags had taken up half the room when he left the apartment this morning…

            “She came and got it,” Arthur explained, hastily pulling off his glasses before he turned to look at Curt.  “How did things go?” he added curiously.  “Since you were gone so long, I’m assumin’ they went all right?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Well, Trevor’s not mad at me anymore.  That’s something.”

            “Er…”

            Curt grimaced, and sat down on the other folding chair.  “It’s not that we didn’t get the gig,” he sighed.  “It’s just that the pay’s shit.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “I was expectin’ that.”

            “You were?”  Why the fuck would he have been expecting that?!

            “I spent years livin’ with a band, remember?  I know how little money club owners are willin’ to part with.”

            “Yeah, but…”  Curt sighed.  “I haven’t accepted that kind of crappy pay since before I made it big.”

            Arthur looked at him with a searching expression that made Curt very uncomfortable, as if he’d see way too much if he looked very long.  “You want to turn it down?”

            Curt coughed.  Telling the club owner to piss off had certainly been his first inclination…  “We already accepted.”

            “By ‘we,’ you really mean ‘Trevor’?”

            “The three of them.  They accepted before I could tell the guy where to shove his pitiful offer,” Curt sighed.  “Probably for the best.  No one’s gonna want to work with me if they think I’m just as hard to deal with sober as I was when I was fucked up.”

            Arthur laughed, and got up, walking over to cradle Curt against his chest as if he was a child.  “You’re not hard to deal with at all, love,” he claimed.

            “Yeah, pull the other one.”  Curt grimaced, and pushed out of Arthur’s arms.  The last thing he wanted was to be babied. 

            “When’s your first performance?” Arthur asked.

            “First?  Fuck you!  I’ve been performing since 1969!”

            Arthur laughed.  “Your first performance for this new gig,” he clarified.

            “Next Saturday.”

            Arthur smiled, and ran his fingers through some of the hair hanging down in front of Curt’s face.  “I can’t wait,” he said, his voice growing a little husky.  That should _not_ have been as much of a turn-on as it was.

            “How’s the article coming?” Curt asked, trying to change the subject before he ended up getting too horny to wait for bedtime.

            Arthur cleared his throat, and looked back over at his computer.  “Well, the rough’s almost done.”

            “So that’s good, right?”

            “Not really.  There’s a lot of work left even after the rough’s finished.”

            Curt scowled.  He knew how much work it was revising the lyrics of a song—or the music, that was even worse!—but how hard could it be to rewrite an article?  It didn’t have to rhyme or have any rhythm…  “What do you mean?” he ultimately asked, when Arthur didn’t offer the information.

            “Assumin’ Trevor gets someone to publish it—and I don’t see how he could fail to—as soon as people see it, the first thing they’ll do is come lookin’ for you and Mandy to get reactions, find out if it’s true.  Sooner or later, they’ll find out about me, right?”

            “Sure, but so what?”

            “So Trevor’s not a writer—he doesn’t even write _songs_ regularly, let alone polished news articles.  They’ll never believe he wrote it if there’s another possibility.”  Arthur shook his head.  “If they figure out that I wrote it after we all claim I didn’t, that’ll be even worse than if it had my name on it to start.  So I ‘ave to work it over until it’s nothing like any article I’ve ever written.  That’s like to take a long time.”

            “Uh…okay.”  Curt wasn’t entirely sure how anyone would go about trying to prove one person or another wrote a magazine article.  Sure, it wasn’t hard with a novel—no one would confuse Oscar Wilde’s work with George Orwell’s—but an article was totally different.  No characters, no story other than the truth, so what were they supposed to go on?  He’d feel like a fucking idiot if he asked, though.  “So, did Mandy say anything interesting when she came to get her stuff?”  Better to change the subject.

            Arthur frowned.  “She said some things that were incomprehensible,” he said, as he headed back over to his chair.  “Does that count?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Girls never make sense.  I figured that out a long time ago.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “They’re not that hard to read, not usually.”

            “So what did she say?”

            Arthur started studying his computer monitor intensely.  What little of his face Curt could see seemed to be flustered.  “Nothing really.”

            Surely…  “She wasn’t hitting on you, was she?”  If she had _dared_ …

            Arthur laughed.  “Of course not.”

            She _better_ not have been.  “All right, then…”

            An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, until Arthur put his ugly glasses back on and started typing again.  Curt got up and walked up to read it over his shoulder.  Looked pretty fucking polished for a first draft.  “You want me to go get take-out for dinner, since you’ve been working hard all day?” he suggested.

            “I don’t think we can afford it,” Arthur replied, without looking away from what he was doing.  “Better to eat in.  Especially if you’re not bein’ paid as much as you expected.”

            Curt grimaced.  Cooking was not really his bag.  But…  “All right, all right.  I’ll make dinner, then.  Just don’t expect anything fancy!”

            “You don’t have to do that,” Arthur said, looking up at him.  “I could—”

            “It’s not like I don’t know how,” Curt insisted, cutting him off.  “You’re okay with burgers, right?”

            “We don’t have any beef.”

            Curt sighed.  “Okay, no burgers then.  Look, just don’t worry about it, okay?  I’ve lived alone most of my life. I know how to do the basics.”

            “I didn’t mean you didn’t know how.  I just thought you’d rather if I did it…”

            “You’ve been working, and I’ve just been dicking around all day doing nothing.”  Not to mention that he ate out for lunch on Trevor’s dime.

            Arthur twitched at the words ‘dicking around,’ but didn’t say anything.  Curt wondered if he should point out that it was just a figure of speech, or if that would be seriously pathetic.  The guy made his living with words; he had to know how they worked, surely.

            After a few minutes just standing there with no idea what he should be doing, Curt wandered off to the kitchen to check on what kind of food they had.  It had been a long time since he’d particularly tried to cook anything; no one ever cooked in New York.  But he’d been pretty fucking lazy since getting to London, letting Arthur do all the work, and that was no good.  On top of the fact that he really didn’t want to get dumped again if he could avoid it, there was the alarming revelation that he was no longer capable of supporting himself with his music.  If people weren’t willing to pay him enough to live on, then what would he do if he didn’t have someone else’s money to help put a roof over his head?  Curt was too old at this point to live the way he had back when he as a teenager, never knowing where he’d be one night to the next, or where his next meal was coming from.  Too old, and too used to living better than that, even if he wasn’t able to live in the same level of comfort he once could.

            Still, maybe those days weren’t lost forever.

            Once that article went out—no matter who got the money for it—people would be paying attention to him again.  And maybe they’d be willing to just plain _pay_ him, too.  It’d be great if he could go back to living in the lap of luxury like he had ten years ago.

            Arthur had probably never experienced that kind of living…

            Leaning against one of the kitchen walls, Curt drifted off into a lovely fantasy, imagining all of Arthur’s reactions as he got to taste a luxury he had only ever dreamed of….

 

***

 

            Before heading to the club, Curt and Arthur went to Trevor’s store to meet up with the Venus in Furs.  The band had dressed to match Curt’s usual concert style—thankfully, leather never went out of style—but it felt artificial to Curt.  That wasn’t how they were supposed to dress.  They were supposed to dress to match Brian…

            …but there wasn’t much point to that anymore, was there?

            The first thing that happened after they were in the store’s back room was that Arthur handed over the manila envelope he’d been carrying so tightly the whole trip on the Underground.  “This is the finished article,” he explained as Trevor accepted the envelope.  “I’ve tried to write it as you, but give it a look before you send it off, make sure it all sounds like something you’d say.”

            Trevor shrugged, opening the envelope to peer at the papers inside.  “Any photos?”

            “You’ll ‘ave to provide them yourself,” Arthur said.  “Or whoever you sell the article to can get them.  Up to you.”

            “Still don’t see why you didn’t want your own name on it,” Reg said, giving Arthur a shifty-eyed stare.

            “Because then everyone would think it was all about us, not about Brian fucking the world over again,” Curt pointed out, putting his arm around Arthur.

            “Yeah, and this way we’re going to look like we’re just jealous because Brian didn’t offer to let us keep being his back-up band,” Harley countered.

            “No matter whose name is on it, someone will look like a selfish prat,” Arthur sighed.  “That’s why we probably shouldn’t be doin’ this at all.”

            “Brian’s the one who’s going to look like a selfish prat,” Trevor insisted, putting the envelope down on the same table where they’d held their meeting.  “We can talk about this later; if we don’t get moving, we’ll be late to our first gig.”

            The five of them piled into Harley’s van—a florist’s delivery van, of all the odd things—and struggled their way through London traffic to the club.  The drive took longer than expected, and they very nearly _were_ late.  Curt didn’t see that it was a big deal if they were late, but everyone else insisted that it would be the end of the contract right then and there.

            Arthur seemed disappointed by the club.  Curt couldn’t blame him; he’d been disappointed, too.  It was filled with boring, obedient people.  The clientele—and possibly the owners—of that club didn’t toe the line because they knew they had to, but because they _liked_ it.  This was the kind of place, back in New York, where you could expect to see a sea of Tommy Stone T-shirts.  Thankfully, those seemed pretty rare in London.  Curt wasn’t sure he’d be able to perform if the audience was wearing that motherfucker’s ugly-ass logo on their chests.

            But a moment’s thought made him realize that he’d be fine.  He’d brought his own audience, one that would—hopefully—be utterly focused on him the whole time he was on stage.

            As long as Arthur was feeding him with those fuck-me eyes, Curt would be fine.

            His confidence started to wane after Arthur kissed him goodbye and headed down to join the crowd while Curt prepared for the performance.  The longer he thought about it, the more Curt realized that they hadn’t actually done much practicing together to get ready for this performance.  Brian would _never_ have allowed them to go on stage with an act they had put this little practice into; he’d have insisted they go out with old material instead, or cancelled the concert altogether.

            Fuck.  Why did everything keep coming back to Brian?

            They hadn’t quite been together for two years.  So why was Curt still thinking about him ten years later?

            It just wasn’t right.  No matter how much he’d been in love, obsessing about it so many years later—and after the other man had gone and become someone else entirely—just _had_ to be unhealthy.  Curt needed to focus his energies on something—or someone—else.  All of them.  Permanently.

            For now, he could focus on the performance.  That would require all his energy.

            And maybe all his self-control, too.  The crowd had little reaction to their arrival on stage.  Apart from Arthur, standing down near the front of the stage, no one even seemed to care.  Maybe they were all too young to even remember the name Curt Wild.

            But at least Arthur was there, his eyes locked on Curt.  It was much the same stare he had fixed on him after the Death of Glitter concert:  intense and expressionless, and thoroughly charged with sexual desire.  It was lucky Curt’s pants were so tight…

            After the first number was over, Trevor left his position and moved closer to Curt.  “Get your mind out of your boy’s trousers,” he hissed.  “If you keep staring at one fixed spot all night, you’ll ruin the whole show!”

            Curt snarled out an angry reply, trying not to let on how humiliating that was.  Had he really been staring at Arthur for the whole song?  Yeah, maybe he had been…

            For the rest of the performance, Curt only allowed himself a few glances at Arthur, forcing himself to turn most of his energy towards the indifferent general audience.

            About halfway through the second song, he decided it was a challenge—a battle between himself and the audience.  And Curt Wild had never liked the back down from a fight.

            The only way he could win this contest was if he got the bored club-goers to leave off their overpriced drinks and inane conversations, drawn into the orbit of his music.  It was like a game; the more people who were dancing or screaming excitedly at the end of the performance, the higher his score would be.

 

***

 

            Arthur couldn’t get to the small backstage area fast enough after the performance was over.  Curt had really pulled out all the stops to win over the club-goers, throwing so much into his performance that even the jaded ‘80s Thatcherites had started to come around and cheer.  Seeing Curt rising back up to the top of his game like that had almost been too much for Arthur:  he’d wanted to rush the stage and tear Curt’s trousers off right then and there, despite all the prying eyes.

            Almost before he had reached Curt, Arthur found himself being pulled into a passionate embrace, and he nearly choked on Curt’s tongue as it drove into his mouth.  They didn’t spend very long kissing before Curt let go again.  “Why the fuck isn’t there a dressing room?” he demanded, looking around.  “No way I can wait until we get home!”

            “Maybe we could go up to the roof,” Arthur suggested, feeling nostalgia heat his cheeks.

            “That’s a good way to get arrested,” Harley laughed.

            “Gimme the keys to your van, then,” Curt snapped, holding out his hand.

            “Hey, no, that’s not—”

            “Now!”

            Harley blanched, and started digging in his pocket for the keys.  Arthur was just wondering if he should ask if Curt even knew how to drive, or if he should ask instead where they were going, when Harley spoke again as he was handing over the keys.  “Just clean up your mess when you’re done.”

            Curt chuckled, and headed back out to the van, pulling Arthur along by one hand.

            How long had it been since Arthur had a shag in the back of someone’s van?  He tried to think about that instead of watching Curt fiddle with the lock on the van’s back doors.  If he got too worked up now, it’d be over too soon, after all.

            It was over pretty quickly anyway.  They were both quite worked up before they could even get their trousers off, and from there it didn’t take much.

            Afterwards, Arthur sat down—somewhat gingerly—on one of the seats, while Curt searched the whole van for cigarettes.  Eventually finding some in the front, he sat down beside Arthur and lit up.  “Maybe we should get a van like this,” he said, after exhaling a lungful of smoke.

            Arthur had to resist the urge to cough on the smoke.  He had never liked the smell of cigarettes.  If they were really going to be living together for some time, he was going to have to find a way to ask Curt to cut back a bit.  “Do you even drive?” he asked.

            “Sure.  How do you think I got outta Michigan in the first place?”

            “I’d ‘ave thought by bus.”

            “Nah.  I just boosted a car and drove.”

            “You stole a car?!”  Arthur couldn’t believe _that_ had never come up before.

            “Well, sort of.  Belonged to some of my cousins.  So it was sort of mine.”

            “That’s not how it works,” Arthur sighed.

            Curt shrugged.  “Seriously, though, think about it.  We could get a van, and have the back fitted out into a little bedroom so we could fuck whenever we wanted.”

            Sounded uncomfortably like a trailer to Arthur’s ears.  “I don’t think that’s really a good idea,” he sighed.  “People would be sure to notice a van parked on the street and jostling about as we shagged.”

            Curt started laughing.  “Don’t you know the old adage about knocking on vans that are rocking?”

            “Curt, please.”

            “What’s eating you?”  Curt looked at him through narrowed eyes.  “You oughta be feeling good right now.”

            “How can I be?” Arthur demanded.  “You just reminded that ‘ole club full of people how sexy you are!  Now they’ll be tryin’ to take you away from me!”  Not that it was likely to take much effort.

            An expressionless stare was followed by uproarious laughter, and a deep kiss.  “God, you’re cute,” Curt said after releasing Arthur’s lips.

            “What?”

            Banging started on the back door of the van before Curt could answer him—if he was even going to answer.  “How bloody long are you two going to go at it?!” Harley’s voice shouted from outside the van.  “I’ve got kids to get home to, you know!”

            “Guess we’d better get dressed,” Arthur said, looking for his clothes.

            “Let him wait,” Curt insisted, taking another drag from his cigarette.  “Be good for him.”

            “It’s rude,” Arthur countered.  “Besides, these seats aren’t terribly comfortable for a bare bum.”

            Curt chuckled.  “You’re spoiled,” he said, putting out his cigarette.  “I used to have to sit on the ground, or rocks, or old tree stumps.  Whatever was handy.”

            “When was that…?” Arthur asked uncertainly.  It could never have been in New York.  Just how much sex had Curt had before leaving the trailer park?

            The fact that Curt didn’t answer him spoke volumes.

 

***

 

            Trevor invited them back to his shop about two weeks after Arthur had given him the article.  “The deal with the magazine’s been finalized,” he told them with a proud grin.  “It’s going to be on the cover,” he added.

            Arthur didn’t even want to ask the cover of what.  He was afraid to know.  “When?” he asked instead.

            “Next month’s issue.  So if there’s anything you want to get fixed up about your flat, better do it now, before the reporters start coming around,” Trevor added, with a wink at Curt.

            “There’s only one reporter whose opinion matters to me,” Curt claimed.  He sounded so disinterested in the whole idea that Arthur doubted Trevor believed it any more than he did.  What Curt meant was that he didn’t care what _any_ reporters thought…including the one sharing his flat.

            “You might want to worry about what everyone _else_ is going to think,” Trevor pointed out.  “They’ll share their photos with the world.  Isn’t there anyone you want to impress?”

            “Not really.”

            Trevor sighed with an expression of disgust, and looked at Arthur.  “Are you going to claim to feel the same way?”

            Arthur shook his head weakly.  “I’d rather not ‘ave the world lookin’ at me in the first place.”  He felt his lips forming a frown against his will.  “I don’t care to impress anyone, but I don’t want to be humiliated, either.”

            “What could be embarrassing about it?” Curt asked, his eyes narrowing again.  For someone who obviously didn’t care, he certainly got testy whenever he thought Arthur might be as indifferent as he was!

            “Considerin’ what the flat looks like right now, a fair bit,” Arthur assured him.  “I’ll ‘ave to spend a while gettin’ everything cleaned up and presentable.”

            “It’s plenty clean!”

            “Aside from at least a dozen beer cans scattered around the sofa.”  Not to mention the general disarray of the furniture and the utter lack of any décor.

            Curt shrugged.  “Who’s gonna care about a few cans?”

            Arthur grimaced, rubbing his forehead. “You know, my family will see those pictures.”

            “Who cares?  From what you’ve said, they’re almost as bad as mine.  Fuck ‘em.”

            “My mum didn’t do anything wrong.”  Even to Arthur, it felt like a pathetic excuse.  But it was true that she hadn’t done anything.  And she’d be the one upset to see Arthur living in what she would perceive as squalor…

            Curt started to reply, but was quickly drowned out by the sound of Trevor’s laughter.  “Just what the fuck is so goddamn funny?!” Curt demanded.

            “Never thought I’d hear you sound so domestic,” Trevor chuckled.

            Curt shrugged, and muttered something Arthur didn’t manage to catch.

            But Trevor was wrong:  it hadn’t been Curt who’d sounded ‘domestic.’  Arthur had been the only one to act ‘domestic.’  In fact, he’d come dangerously close to society’s offensive parodies of what a gay man should be like.  Maybe he _shouldn’t_ care what the flat looked like, then.  Not that it mattered.  Curt would probably throw him out as soon as the article appeared, if not before.

            That first performance hadn’t changed much in their home life, but after the second one, Curt had started showing clear signs of dissatisfaction with Arthur.  It was hard to blame him.  At the second performance, there had been dozens of fans waiting for him to take the stage, eager and excited even before the music started.  Many of those fans had been quite attractive, and they had clearly all wanted into Curt’s trousers.  Of course Curt was starting to wish he didn’t have Arthur getting in his way.

            Maybe when they got home, Arthur should offer to disappear once the article came out, so Curt wouldn’t be publically embarrassed by being seen sharing his living space with such a drab and uninteresting man.  Then, once the immediate storm of interest was over, he could come back, and if Curt still wanted him around—unlikely!—he could settle back in and stay, and if not he’d pack up his things and go.  One of the Creatures would surely put him up for a night or two until Arthur could find someplace new to live.

            Curt and Trevor had started talking about their next performance while Arthur was wallowing in his miserable situation, and they were still talking about it when the shopgirl came in.  “Mr. Finn, the girls and I are getting some new gear ready, so I’m going to go check the costume shop upstairs for anything we can use,” she announced.

            “Costume shop?” Curt repeated, sounding perplexed.

            “You can’t just take things that don’t belong to you, Sandra,” Trevor told her.  “When I bought this place, I had to pay for all its merchandise.  And there’s always the chance that glam might come back into style, so I want to hold on to that stuff.  If you want any of it, you’ll have to pay me for it.”

            “Hey, that’s right, you said you sold your old clothes here,” Curt said, looking at Arthur.  “Let’s go up with her and see if they’re still here.”

            “Why?” Arthur asked.  “I doubt it would fit me even if any of it’s still here.”  He was fairly sure he wasn’t as slender as he was all those years ago…

            “So?”  Curt looked around.  “Where’s this costume shop at?”

            “It’s not a costume shop,” Trevor sighed.  “It’s just back stock.”  He shook his head.  “Sandra, you go on and take them up there with you.  But nothing’s leaving the premises without my say-so.  You bring anything you want back down here.”

            “You’re not gonna charge us to take back what already belongs to us,” Curt objected.

            “It doesn’t belong to us,” Arthur reminded him, biting back a further rejoinder that nothing up there had ever belonged to Curt in the first place.  “Anything up there that used to be mine I sold eight or nine years ago.  It belongs to the store.”

            “Close enough.”

            Trevor chuckled.  “Just bring it down with you, and I’ll decide if I want compensation for you taking it,” he said.  “Some stuff’ll never sell, even if glam does come back.”

            “Most of my things were probably bought years ago by girls anyway,” Arthur sighed.  Just about everything he’d sold had originally been made as women’s clothing in the first place, after all.

            “Does that mean you used to be a drag queen?” Sandra asked, looking at him curiously.

            Arthur wasn’t sure if his face was growing so hot because of the horribly embarrassing question, or because of the way Curt was laughing at him.  “I was nothing of the sort!” he insisted.  “It was just…just blouses and things.  I always wore trousers; I’d never ‘ave wanted to be mistaken for a girl.”

            “You could have been,” Curt chuckled.  “You were pretty enough.”

            Arthur grimaced as Sandra started laughing.  “Not helpful, Curt.”

            Curt, of course, grinned and put his arm around Arthur’s waist, without otherwise replying.

            It was a long trek up to the attic, where the old glam clothes were being stored, and Sandra kept asking questions of Arthur, mostly wondering just what he _had_ wanted from wearing women’s things if it wasn’t trying to look like a woman.  Arthur did his best to explain, but it wasn’t working too well.  Anyone too young to remember the impact of Brian Slade performing at the height of his career would never understand.

            The store’s attic was quite huge, it turned out, and filled with racks upon racks of clothing, most of it spangly or shimmery.  Almost all the trousers were bell-bottoms, and the lapels on the shirts were wide and often decorated.  There were huge bins of costume jewellery of every sort, and it was to those bins that Sandra went first, eagerly pawing through them.  Arthur suspected she was hoping for jewellery she could wear off stage rather than on, but he didn’t say anything.  He doubted anything so useful remained in those bins; decent jewellery would have been sold off long before Trevor bought the shop.

            “Hey, what happened to those earrings you were wearing back then?” Curt asked, using one hand to reach over and gently trace the edges of one of Arthur’s earlobes.

            Arthur couldn’t bring himself to look at Curt.  “I…sort of…gave them to a girl…” he admitted uncomfortably.

            “How do you ‘sort of’ give someone something?”

            “It was about the time I was facin’ up to needin’ to sell off all my glam things, and she asked if she could ‘ave a look through my jewellery before I sold it.  How could I ‘ave told her she couldn’t take that particular pair?”

            “You could have told her you’d been wearing them when you met the man of your dreams,” Curt insisted, not sounding the least bit dreamy.

            “I couldn’t ‘ave told her that!” Arthur exclaimed, looking over at Curt, hoping the look in his eyes would be plea enough to end that line of conversation.

            “Why not?”  Clearly, either Arthur’s eyes weren’t expressive enough, or Curt was no good at reading eyes.

            Arthur sighed deeply.  “I fancied her,” he claimed.  He _had_ been trying to convince himself that he fancied her, but he had never even fooled himself, let alone her.  “Bein’ bisexual was no longer accepted, and I thought tellin’ her about it would damage my chances.”

            “Did she turn out to be one of the three?”  Shite, Curt actually remembered that?  A conversation in the middle of the night—in the middle of foreplay!—so many months ago, and he remembered the numbers?  That was certainly unexpected…and awkward, considering the numbers had both been lies.  Arthur hadn’t wanted to admit that he couldn’t remember how many men there had been and that there had only been the one woman, or that sleeping with her had only been an experiment as he tried to figure out if he was bisexual like his idols.

            Arthur shook his head.  “She wasn’t interested,” he said.  It wasn’t entirely a lie; she really hadn’t been interested in him.  That just wasn’t the only reason he hadn’t slept with her.  “Liked her men big and burly.  Even without dressin’ glam, I could never ‘ave been manly enough for her.”

            Curt grimaced, then sighed deeply.  “Guess I can’t say anything,” he concluded.  “I’ve done dumb shit in the hopes of getting laid, too.”

            Giving away a cheap pair of earrings hardly qualified as ‘dumb shit,’ but Arthur didn’t think it prudent to point that out.  “Of course, in your case, it must ‘ave always worked.”

            Curt laughed, and shook his head.  “Not even a little bit.  The dumber it was, the more likely it was to fail.  Except that time I nearly killed myself pretending I knew how to ride a motorcycle.  That one worked, but probably only ‘cause she felt sorry for me.”

            “When…when was _that_?”

            “Back when I was living in Detroit,” Curt said, with a shrug.  “Actually, that was one of the reasons I left.  The guy who owned the motorcycle wasn’t too happy I’d trashed it.”

            “You _have_ led an interesting life,” Arthur sighed, shaking his head.

            “Like the old Chinese curse,” Curt chuckled.

            “What?”

            “May you live in interesting times,” Curt said.  “It’s sort of like saying ‘I hope your life’s gonna be shit’.”

            “Er…how…?”

            Curt shrugged.  “Old guy who ran a restaurant in Chinatown used to say that to me, ‘cause he thought I was trying to screw his daughter.”

            “Who _were_ you tryin’ to screw?”

            “I wasn’t _trying_ ,” Curt laughed.  “I _was_ screwing his son.”  He shrugged.  “I wasn’t sure if the old man would’ve seen that as better or worse, and neither was his son, so we kept it quiet.”

            Arthur bit his lip, wondering if it would be rude to ask when that was, and what happened in the end.  Perhaps not rude, exactly, but it might be a bit improper to ask, all things considered.

            While Arthur was pondering, Curt wandered over to one of the racks of clothes and started rummaging through it.  “What are we looking for?” Curt asked, looking back over his shoulder at Arthur.  “I only know the one shirt.”

            Arthur smiled, and shook his head as he walked over to join Curt.  “Why is it so important to you?  Apart from that one blouse, it’s all meaningless to you.”

            Curt cradled the back of Arthur’s neck in his hand, and pulled him in for a tender kiss.  “They belonged to you.  Don’t you want them back?”

            “Not really,” Arthur sighed.  But Curt wasn’t listening, having gone back to pawing through the clothes.  Maybe this was fulfilling some long repressed need, or he just really missed the ‘70s?

            Curt pulled a pink, sequined blouse off the rack.  “Is this one of yours?” he asked hopefully.

            Arthur chuckled.  “No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, it most certainly is not.”  Though it _was_ the sort of thing that the Flaming Creatures used to try to make him wear, especially when they were high or drunk.

            “Too bad,” Curt said, holding the blouse up in front of Arthur’s chest.  “It’d look good on you.”

            “Even ten years ago, I wouldn’t ‘ave worn that, and I certainly won’t wear it now.”  Even if he _were_ willing to wear it, it was about half the size he would need.  The garment was clearly for a woman, and a fairly petite one at that.

            “Wow, I would,” Sandra suddenly said, taking it out of Curt’s hands.  “This’ll look cute as a jacket over my mourning dress.”

            Pink sequins…with a mourning dress…?  Arthur was quite certain he didn’t want to know.

            “Who died?” Curt asked.

            “Ugh.”  Sandra turned her attention to the rack of clothes rather than answer him.

            That, of course, set Curt to muttering rather vile things about her, which Sandra completely ignored.  Arthur tried to soothe Curt as best he could, but it was difficult to know how to calm him successfully; his attempts could just as easily fully ignite Curt’s temper instead.

            “Oh, this is cute,” Sandra suddenly exclaimed, pulling a hanger off the rack.  Draped across it was a translucent, leopard-print scarf.  Arthur winced, turning his face away from the garment.

            “What’s wrong?” Curt asked.  “That one of yours?”

            “Possibly,” Arthur admitted.  There was no reason to think his was the only one that was sold to this shop.

            “Then we’ll ta—”

            “No!”  Arthur set a hand on Curt’ arm, trying to calm himself down more than Curt.  “If that is the same one I sold…I certainly don’t want it back again.”

            “Why not?  What’s wrong with it?”

            “I was wearin’ it the day Brian faked his own death,” Arthur explained, his voice barely passing through his lips.  Before this past February, that wouldn’t have been upsetting, but now…

            Curt pulled Arthur close against his chest, rubbing his back gently.  “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered.

            Arthur wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that.  They were only pulled out of it by hearing Sandra say “This will be perfect!”

            “Hey, no, you can’t have that!” Curt shouted, almost immediately.

            Arthur turned to look, and saw that Sandra—now standing at one of the other racks—was holding a purple blouse made from a glittering fabric.  If it wasn’t the one he’d worn to the Death of Glitter concert, it was just like it.

            “This is _exactly_ what I need,” Sandra insisted, cradling the garment close against her chest.

            Arthur put a hand on Curt’s shoulder to hold him back, then went over to Sandra’s side himself.  Hanging from the rack were three more blouses almost exactly the same as the one Sandra was holding.  “I never realised my taste was so common,” he sighed.  “May I see that one?” he asked, reaching for the blouse Sandra was holding.

            “But there’s four of them,” Sandra whimpered, even as she handed over the blouse.  “One for each member of the band.”

            “Might be better if one girl didn’t match the other three,” Arthur told her, smiling.  He didn’t want to disappoint Curt if it could be avoided, but it was hardly fair to deny Sandra and her bandmates a garment they’d actually wear, either.  Quickly, he checked the tags on the four blouses.  Two of them were much too small to have ever been his, and a third was labelled as coming from entirely the wrong manufacturer.  “If any of these was mine, it was this one,” he concluded, taking the fourth from the rack and leaving the other three.

            “So we’re taking that one,” Curt said.  His words had a finality to them that set Sandra to pouting.

            “What could you possibly need with it?” Sandra objected.  “No way you’re going to wear it now!”

            “He was wearing it the day we met,” Curt told her coldly.  “So we’re keeping it.  Period.”

            Sandra’s eyes flashed over to Arthur, and he nodded at her gently, with a small smile.  The girl let out a weary sigh, and announced that she could probably get away with wearing the pink blouse while the other girls were wearing the purple ones.

            Moving back to Curt’s side, Arthur suggested that surely they didn’t need any of his other old clothes—if there even were any more of them there—so they should just head downstairs and leave Sandra to it.  No logic got through to Curt until Arthur pointed out that the more they wanted to take, the more likely Trevor was to expect full payment for the garments, and they really couldn’t afford that right now, so Curt finally relented.

            And yet he didn’t _fully_ relent, because he insisted that Arthur was going to have to wear the shirt for him when they got back to the flat.

            “I don’t think it will fit properly at all,” Arthur pointed out, trying to stay reasonable.

            “That’s okay,” Curt assured him, “because you’re not going to be wearing it for very long.”  He finished his statement with such a desirous look that Arthur couldn’t have argued even if he’d wanted to.


	10. Chapter 10

            Arthur had been acting funny for the last two weeks, more or less.  It might have been work, or the politics he was having to write about, but Curt was pretty sure it was actually the impending release of the article exposing Brian’s—Tommy’s—dark secret.  He had no idea what to do about that, though.  It had never been in his control in the first place, and Arthur usually got _more_ uneasy whenever Curt tried to comfort him, so he pretty much just had to sit on his hands and do nothing, watching as Arthur fell apart.

            But as soon as the magazine came out, he’d put himself back together again.  Surely.

            At least, Curt sure hoped he would, because he couldn’t handle much more of this.  The day before the magazine’s street date, Arthur barely stopped pacing for a minute, jumped at the slightest sound, and didn’t even seem to relax while they were having sex.  Every few minutes, he would start to say something, then act like he’d swallowed his tongue, and shake his head instead of finishing his thought.  About lunchtime, Curt left the apartment to have a smoke, and didn’t return until it was almost time for dinner.  He’d needed the break.

            When he got back, he found Arthur cleaning the place within an inch of its life.  Arthur gave some flimsy excuse about how many people would be seeing it in the days to come, but Curt got the impression that it had just been a way to release his nervous energy.  While it was slightly less annoying than all the pacing, Curt didn’t exactly want to be living with Felix Unger, either.

            But all this stressing out was going to end once the article was released into the wild.  Then Arthur would see that all the predators weren’t eating his baby, and he’d calm down.

            Or maybe Curt had seen one too many nature documentary lately, what with having so few channels to choose from.

            Arthur was even more unsettled the morning of the magazine’s release.  He suggested—about five times—that they could go pick up a copy at a newsstand, and each time Curt reminded him that they had taken out a subscription to the magazine specifically so they wouldn’t have to.  Each time Arthur seemed to accept that less and less as an excuse, until Curt decided to distract him with a blowjob.  _That_ at least calmed him down.

            For a while.

            By lunchtime, Arthur was all jittery again.  Curt had a nice lunch delivered, but it didn’t do much to soothe Arthur’s nerves.

            Considering his name wasn’t even on the fucking article anyway, what the hell did he have to be so nervous about?  Curt really wanted to know, and yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to ask.  Sometimes asking just made things worse.  Still, as irritating as Arthur’s current behavior was, it could have been worse.  He could have been bottling everything up and acting like nothing got to him and he had no feelings, until it suddenly all burst out like a volcano, just because Curt got a little too drunk when he should have been working.

            But that wasn’t going to happen ever again.  Curt knew better now.  He’d never fuck another smooth, nothing-gets-to-me type.  Even if he hadn’t learned anything else from the disaster his relationship with Brian had become, at least he had learned that much.

            Their mail usually came by about twelve-thirty or one, so Arthur headed down to check for it as soon as he finished eating lunch.  When he came back, he was already reading the magazine, and fumbled with the lock so much that Curt had to let him back into the apartment.

            As Trevor had said, the entire front cover was dedicated to the story.  They had taken a photo of Brian in a white suit—it was an old picture, from about a month or so before he and Curt had met—and cut jaggedly around it, then pasted it onto a modern stage, the jagged leftovers of the original photo hiding most of the Tommy Stone logo, while still leaving a provocative hint of it.

            Arthur sat down at the table without a word, still reading, his brow furrowing the more he read.  Curt didn’t have much choice but to sit down and watch him read, staring uncomfortably at the magazine that was between them.  He’d been told, repeatedly, that it was Britain’s equivalent of _Rolling Stone_ , but to Curt it didn’t feel like much of a big deal.  After all, there was no way Brian—Tommy—would see it in New York.  The thing wasn’t international.  And if it wasn’t going to get to Tommy, then what was the point of it?

            They should have tried harder to talk Trevor out of the whole thing.

            Eventually, Arthur set down the magazine, a grimace of deep displeasure covering his usually pretty face.  “He really changed it,” he announced, sliding the open magazine towards Curt.

            “Well, you told him he could,” Curt reminded him.

            “I didn’t mean he should change it _that_ much,” Arthur replied, shaking his head.  “He’s excised every single mention of you!”

            “Seriously?”  That didn’t sound like something Trevor would do.  It wasn’t even in his best _interests_ to do it, considering they were now performing together.  Curt picked up the magazine and skimmed the article.  Sure enough, there was no mention of Curt, and barely even any mention of Mandy.  “That’s really fucking weird,” Curt said, closing the magazine again.  “But at least it’ll keep people from thinking you wrote it,” he added, with a chuckle.

            “Yes, but…”  Arthur sighed.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining.  But I keep thinkin’ of all the ways this could go wrong…”

            “See, that’s your problem,” Curt said, getting up out of his chair.  “You think too much.”

            “Curt…”

            “C’mon, get up.”

            Arthur rose to his feet obediently, but he looked skeptical.  “What are you thinkin’?”

            “I’m not _thinking_ at all,” Curt said, giving him a grin.  “I’m _feeling_.”

            Without waiting for an answer, he turned Arthur bodily in the direction of the bedroom, and began gently pushing him along.  Arthur soon let out a little noise, half a chuckle, and half a disappointed sigh.  “It’s first thing in the afternoon,” he pointed out.

            “So?  You need a good fucking.”

            Arthur laughed.  “Maybe I do,” he agreed.

            How long had it been since he’d given in so readily?  It must have been a long time, because that rapid surrender really hit Curt hard.  Suddenly he needed this just as much as Arthur did.

            Once they were in the bedroom, Arthur turned around, so fast that for a moment Curt was afraid that he’d changed his mind.  But then he leaned in to kiss Curt, and all doubts disappeared.  In moments, they were kissing deeply, tearing each others’ clothes off, barely parting even to take a breath.

            But at some point after their clothes were all discarded, Arthur’s enthusiasm seemed to wane, and he began to put less and less into the kissing.  When Curt finally let go of him to look at his face, Arthur looked depressed still, maybe even distressed.  What the fuck was the matter with him?

            “Go lie down,” Curt told him.

            Arthur obeyed without complaint, but Curt could feel his eyes on him as he fetched the lube out of the drawer on the bedside table.  Watching, maybe even judging.  Why?  No, it didn’t matter.  He’d go back to normal after a really good fucking.  That always made him feel better.

            Still, it was probably good to play it safe a bit.  Some more foreplay to get his interest back.  Especially since Curt didn’t feel ready to stop playing around and move on to the fucking just yet.  He set the lube down near Arthur’s waist, and took a position above him, kissing him passionately.  But when Curt lifted his head again, he saw a worried look on Arthur’s face.  “What?!” Curt demanded.  “What the fuck are you so upset about?!”  How much of this was he supposed to take?

            “It’s not that,” Arthur claimed.

            “What is it, then?”  Or did he just _want_ to ruin Curt’s sexual appetite?

            “Aren’t you upset at all?”

            “You’re frowning when we should be fucking.  How could I not be upset?”

            Arthur laughed, and shook his head.  “No, about the article.  Aren’t you cross that you weren’t even mentioned?”

            Realistically, Curt knew he probably should be.  But he wasn’t.  He couldn’t even find any way to _get_ angry about it.  “Not at all,” he assured Arthur, before kissing him again.  As they kissed, a thought struck Curt.  “I don’t want to be defined by my past,” he explained after the kiss ended.  “I want to be defined by my present.”

            “Curt…”  Arthur’s smile was so weighed down with emotion that his eyes were misting up.

            Curt kissed him again, then gave his ear a quick nip before he started working his way down along Arthur’s neck with his lips and tongue.  He was going to make this as close to perfect as he could.  For both their sakes.

 

***

 

            Even though he knew it was probably going to be a terrible day, Arthur woke up with a sense of renewal.  All his tensions and worries had melted away, leaving even the air in the flat seeming crisp and refreshed.  Part of him was trying to renew his worries, insisting that he was reading too much into it.  When Curt said he wanted to be defined by his present, he only meant his lack of connection to Brian, not his new romance with Arthur, that part of him insisted.  But it didn’t seem a very convincing argument, and Arthur was determined not to listen this time.  He’d been listening to that inner voice all this time, giving in to the voice’s insistence that Curt was going to abandon him again at any second, and yet here they were, still together, more than six months later, living together on a completely different continent.

            It was time to stop listening.  No matter how unworthy or uninteresting all Arthur’s previous lovers had found him, Curt obviously saw something else in him, or maybe he _wanted_ dullness.  After someone like Brian, perhaps a boring lover was what Curt needed.

            Besides, yesterday—the day that saw the release of the article exposing Brian’s current whereabouts to the world—should have been the day Curt was least interested in Arthur, and yet they had made love twice, three times if the blowjob counted.  Arthur smiled, and snuggled closer to Curt’s back, tightening his arm around his lover’s waist.  The fact that Curt had accorded him the altogether too rare honour of taking on the active role last night seemed to prove that Arthur’s inner self-doubt had to be wrong.

            “God, this feels so fucking weird,” Curt soon mumbled.

            Arthur loosened his grip.  “I’m sorry.”

            Curt laughed.  “I’m just not used to it, that’s all.  No reason to apologise.  It was my idea.”

            Arthur couldn’t help smiling at the reminder, and pulled Curt even closer.  “It’s my idea now,” he suggested, whispering into Curt’s ear.  If only they could spend the rest of their lives doing nothing but making love!

            Curt sighed sadly, and gently pushed Arthur’s arm off him.  “Better not to risk it,” he said miserably.  “God knows how early those motherfuckers will come nosing around to ask questions.”

            Shite.  That _was_ bound to happen, even without Curt’s name in the article, wasn’t it?  “I suppose you’re right,” he agreed, trying not to sound as disappointed as he felt.

            Curt rolled over, and gave him a light kiss.  “We can tell them to piss off as soon as they get here.”

            “Probably not a good idea,” Arthur said, shaking his head.  “You don’t want to waste the chance to advertise your performances.”

            They spent a little while longer discussing it, but they couldn’t come to any other conclusion but that it was important for them to be ready and presentable by the time the media came looking for Curt to verify to the story about Brian.  Curt showered first, and by the time Arthur was done with his shower, he found that Curt was making them breakfast.  If toasting frozen waffles counted as ‘making breakfast.’

            Arthur put the kettle on for tea, but it had barely boiled by the time the doorbell sounded.

            “Didn’t waste any fucking time, did they?” Curt grumbled, getting up from the table, where he had only just started eating.  “Go ahead and eat.  At this hour, there’s gotta only be one of them.”

            Arthur found the whole situation disquieting.  It wasn’t even eight yet.  There was no way that was a journalist from any reputable paper, and it _certainly_ wasn’t someone from the BBC.  No one would be rude enough to come around looking to interview a subject so early in the morning, particularly not on a flippant topic like rock and roll.  Especially when the interview subject was a rock star whose public image was that of a hedonist who would likely still be sleeping, or at least hung-over, so early in the morning.  But if he accompanied Curt to the door, he’d only make things worse, no matter who was out there, so he finished pouring his tea and sat down at the breakfast table.

            Of course, given the small size of the flat, he could see the door from there, so he could surely be seen by the people on the other side as well.  But maybe if he was going about his daily routine, he would seem less remarkable to them, more of a guest or a roommate than a lover.

            When Curt opened the door, Arthur couldn’t see the individuals on the other side, but looking over Curt’s shoulder he _could_ just see the television camera one of them was holding.  It was labelled with the logo of an American television station.  What was an American news crew doing here?

            “Any comment on yesterday’s stunning events?” a woman’s voice asked.  Her accent implied she was from the American South, but there was a hint of artificiality about it.

            “Do you have any fucking idea how early it is?” Curt demanded.  “I’ve only had one bite of my breakfast!  Piss off!”

            “Whose side are you on?” the woman shouted, even as Curt started closing the door again.

            “What?”  Curt opened the door again.  “What are you talking about?”

            “Then you haven’t heard?”

            Curt sighed.  “I’m working with the Venus in Furs right now.  Trevor told me about that article a month ago.”

            “What article?” the woman replied, sounding confused.  _That_ was worrying!  Arthur wanted to get up and go over there to ask questions of her, but he didn’t dare draw attention to himself.  Reminding the people of America that Curt was bisexual was only going to turn them against him, no matter what the reason was that brought these reporters here this morning.

            “Why are you here if you’re not coming because of the article about Brian?” Curt asked, his voice fairly dripping with suspicion, turning it thick and heavy.

            The woman let out a heavy sigh.  “Ugh, it’s just like they said.  You really don’t follow the news _at all_.”

            “I live with a fucking reporter,” Curt growled.  “I’m willing to bet I know more about the news than you do, bitch.  Tell me why you’re here, or I’m slamming this door in that cake of make-up you call a face.”

            Arthur winced.  Insulting a female reporter on camera was a disastrous move, no matter the provocation.  If they broadcast that, it would turn the audience against Curt, period.

            “It was all over the news last night,” the reporter retorted, her voice carrying her certainty of victory quite clearly.

            “Not the BBC news it wasn’t,” Curt said.  Not that _Curt_ had been the one watching the news reports.  Then again, since he didn’t even know what the woman was talking about, how could he know that it—whatever it was—hadn’t been on the BBC news?

            There was silence for almost half a minute, then the woman laughed uncomfortably.  “I guess it wasn’t,” she admitted.  “What happened was that Terrance Meyer announced that he’d been ripped off by another drug-abusing rock star,” the woman started.

            Bloody hell.  Not another Terrance Meyer accusation.  Meyer had been the engineer on Curt’s last album, which came out just a few weeks before Tommy Stone hit it big.  Within months, Meyer was publically accusing Curt of still being addicted to heroin, of shooting up in the recording booth, and worst of all Meyer claimed that he, not Curt, had written all the songs on the album.  Curt’s most devoted fans didn’t want to believe a word of it—and knew that the drug claims surely had to be lies, even if Curt _had_ trashed the studio once during the recording process—but the songs on that album were so different from all Curt’s previous hits…of course the accusation had been the death knell of Curt’s career.  Even Arthur had entertained a few momentary doubts about the authorship of the songs, though a more careful analysis revealed countless lyrical touches and musical flourishes that had always been present in Curt’s work.  The public evidently neither noticed nor cared about those, because there had been nearly a year’s worth of protest and outcry demanding that the credits on the album sleeve be changed to give Meyer the credit for Curt’s hard work.  The only reason it hadn’t happened, the pundits all agreed, was because the record label didn’t want to spend the money to reprint an album that was never going to sell beyond its original pressing.

            Arthur had never asked, but since last February he had begun to suspect that a fearful Tommy had convinced Meyer to make those accusations against Curt so that no one would believe him if he told the world that Tommy Stone was really Brian Slade.

            “He never heard the story of the boy who cried wolf, then?” Curt laughed.

            “So you’re on Tommy’s side?” the woman replied, sounding surprised.  “But you’ve always seemed to hate him.”

            “What?  Tommy—you mean he was claiming to have written Tommy Stone’s latest album?” Curt asked, his voice incredulous.  “You gotta be fucking kidding me!  Like he’d ever sing a single note that he didn’t write?”  Not unless it was written by Jack Fairy, anyway.  “That’s not just bullshit, it’s fucking stupid.”  Curt shook his head.  “That motherfucker must’ve found out about the article, and he’s using this a smokescreen…”

            “A smokescreen?” the woman repeated.  “A smokescreen for what?”

            “You go to the nearest newsstand and ask for the magazine with the Tommy Stone story,” Curt told her.  “Maybe you’ll learn something about _real_ reporting.”  He shut the door before the woman could reply, then returned to the table, sitting down to his breakfast as if nothing had happened.

            “This isn’t good, Curt,” Arthur said.

            Curt shrugged.  “I don’t know what he’s thinking.  It’s just gonna bite him in the ass.”  He took a bite of his waffle, then shook his head.  “I get that he wants to distract everyone so they won’t notice your article, but you’d think he could find a way that wouldn’t involve accusing himself of being a fake.  I mean, he’s already a fucking fake!”

            “And the shite on his latest album was absolutely identical to the rubbish on all his previous albums, so no one is likely to take Meyer’s accusation seriously,” Arthur said, frowning.  “That’s…but…no, you’re right that it doesn’t make much sense to distract from the truth of his deceptions by creating accusations regarding a deception that _isn’t_ happening.”  He shrugged.  “Maybe he was desperate and couldn’t think of anything else in time.”

            “Not much other explanation.”  Curt scowled, looking away from his breakfast and up at Arthur.  “You think he’s got anything else planned for this?  Like this is just the opener, and eventually the main act will come on stage?”

            “Do you think so?”

            “I don’t know,” Curt admitted.  “It’s not like Brian to do something without a plan, or to do something this fucking stupid.  But he’s not really Brian anymore, so…”  Curt was silent for almost a minute, then sighed.  “Look, let’s just not worry about this.  It doesn’t involve us.”

            “Curt, he’s obviously tryin’ to make it involve you.”

            Curt didn’t seem concerned, but Arthur couldn’t help worrying.  As soon as he finished eating, he picked up this morning’s American papers, hoping for some more insight, or at least a few details.  Since the record company holding Tommy’s contract was headquartered on the west coast, Arthur decided to start with the Los Angeles paper, in the hopes that the story got a bit more attention as something “local.”  He skipped straight to the section that covered entertainment news and found an article, but it was brief and generally lacked details, stating only that Terrance’s accusations against Tommy Stone were essentially identical to those he had levelled at Curt Wild four years earlier, and that no one had been aware he had even worked on Tommy Stone’s latest album prior to these accusations.

            Disappointed, Arthur turned to the New York paper next.  In most essential ways, the article was no different, being only a few paragraphs long, but it did provide a few important details that the other had left out.  First, Terrance worked at a recording studio in Los Angeles, while Tommy’s album had been recorded in New York.  It was possible, the article conceded, that Terrance might have been loaned out—as it were—to the New York studio without it being made public knowledge, but if that was the case, why was he not credited for his work on the album?  Second, and much more tellingly, not only was he accusing Tommy of exactly the same things he’d accused Curt of, he was doing so in exactly the same words.  The fellow writing the article couldn’t imagine what Terrance had to gain in levelling false accusations against Tommy Stone, and he was clearly ignorant of Tommy’s true identity.  He also failed to conclude that since the second set of accusations was clearly false, he should no longer accept the first set of accusations as true.  So long as those details became well known among the public at large, _Tommy’s_ career would be safe, but would they be enough to retroactively repair Curt’s reputation?

            The final paper was from Washington, D.C., so Arthur wasn’t really expecting it to hold any strong insights into how the country—and the world—would react to allegations about musicians, but he had to see what it said, regardless.  He had barely found the story when the doorbell rang again.

            Curt groaned as he got to his feet, but he didn’t say anything; he just went over and opened the door.  This time, a chorus of voices began shouting his name.  So the proper media were here now.  Before Curt could say anything, however, Arthur could hear the voice of their landlady screeching at him.  “This is a public nuisance!” she shouted.  “Not only are your guests blocking the whole hallway, they’re making a racket first thing in the morning!  I’ve got the right to kick you out without notice if you can’t obey my rules, and I told your boyfriend that when he signed the lease!”  So much for the hope, however faint, that people might mistake Arthur for just a friend.  “And I have rules against this sort of behaviour!”

            “These fuckers aren’t with me,” Curt snapped back.

            “Then get rid of them!  If they’re not out of my hallway in two minutes, I’m calling the police!”

            Curt shouted a few obscenities at her, then let out a miserable sigh, and shook his head.  “I guess I’ll have to let you come in, but you better not say one damn thing passing judgment on what my apartment looks like.  ‘Cause it’s none of your fucking business!”  _That_ was not what Arthur was worried about them judging.  But after what the landlady said, they’d be judging—and reporting—on Curt’s love life regardless of whether or not they caught sight of Arthur, so he didn’t bother hurrying off to hide in one of the bedrooms.

            He should have.

            Of course, all of the men following Curt into the flat had to cast a curious glance at Arthur as they passed by the breakfast table, but none of them aimed a camera at him—not even the sole man with a television camera—so that was fine.  Except that one of them worked at the same paper Arthur did.  _He_ kept looking over at Arthur every few minutes, as if he expected Arthur to change into someone else if he didn’t keep a close eye out.  But Arthur didn’t think it was a good idea to say anything to him.  After all, he was only at work two days out of the week, so there was a chance the man didn’t actually know who he was, just realised that his face was familiar.  And perhaps it didn’t matter anyway.  Hopefully the paper didn’t have any rules against homosexual employees, though with the way the world was at the moment, there was no guarantee that it might not have such rules.

            The impromptu press conference was relatively brief, and surprisingly orderly.  They all wanted answers to the same questions, so it didn’t much matter to them who did the asking.  Of course, the first question was if the story was true, and then how Curt could be sure that Tommy was really Brian.  If any of them had heard about what was going on in America right now with Terrance Meyer, they didn’t mention it.  The other big question was, of course, why Curt had never exposed Tommy’s secret himself.  That one left Curt silent for some time.  Where Arthur was sitting, he couldn’t see Curt’s face, but he had a feeling he knew the expression that was sitting on it:  furrowed brows, a small but pensive frown on his lips, and eyes shut in deep concentration.

            “He made sure I couldn’t,” Curt eventually said.  “Saw to it that my career got wrecked, and my reputation got shot.  Brian’s always been petty about his exes,” he added, shaking his head.  “But that wasn’t what really stopped me.  It was when he started working for the Committee for Cultural Renewal.”

            “That’s one of President Reynolds’ personal projects, yes?” one of the print men asked.

            “That’s putting it mildly,” Curt scoffed.

            “For the sake of our viewers, could you explain a little about this committee?” the man from the BBC asked.

            Curt cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “It’s hard to explain.  Reynolds got elected with this fucked-up, rose-coloured glasses view of the ‘50s, as if they were perfect and pretty.  So his idea was to set up a governmental agency to turn America into _Leave it to Beaver_ , even though life was never really like that.  The Committee for Cultural Renewal claims to be about ‘purifying’ American culture; they like to say they’re expunging the foreign element, but that’s bullshit.  They’re really trying to get rid of anything that doesn’t fit that ‘50s ethic.  You like to fuck your own sex?  You can forget performing in America.  You wanna sing about drugs?  Hell no, they won’t let you.  Don’t like war?  Go home and save yourself some time.  Your skin ain’t lily white?  May as well head to Canada.  You’ve got a pussy instead of a dick?  Hope you like singing about cooking and cleaning, ‘cause that’s all they want you to do.  Don’t believe in Jesus?  They’ll be happy to speed you along on your trip to Hell.”  Curt shook his head.  “Sick thing is, they try and make a game out of it.  They’re recruiting high school kids into this thing, getting ‘em to turn in their classmates for prizes.  It’s like he called Big Brother’s bet and raised it.”

            “And Brian Slade is working for such an organisation?”  The voice of the man who asked was shaking slightly, as if he was as hurt by the revelation as Arthur had been.  Given his age, he probably was.

            Curt nodded.  “Yeah, he’s stabbing us all in the back.  I don’t know when he lost his soul, but it’s gone.  There’s nothing left inside him but hair gel.”

            “I’m unclear how his involvement with this committee kept you from coming forward,” the man from Arthur’s paper said, his voice stony.  “Wouldn’t that have been more incentive to do so, considering that Tommy Stone has been a draw to young people, convincing them to join up with the committee?”

            Curt laughed, cold and mirthless.  “You ever had anyone point a gun at your face?”  The other man blanched, and shook his head.  “Well, I have, in the hands of committee enforcers.  They didn’t actually _say_ they’d shoot me if I shot my mouth off, but it was implied pretty fucking loudly.  And I’m fond enough of my blood that I want to keep it all inside my body.  No point in me throwing my life away to try and expose them.  Especially since they’d have stopped anything I said from ever reaching the public anyway.”

            “Were you at all involved in writing the story about all this?” another man asked.  “You’re working with the Venus in Furs right now…”

            “Yeah, we’re performing together, so Trevor told me about it, but that’s it,” Curt said, shaking his head.  “I didn’t help write it, and I told him he probably shouldn’t publish it.  This isn’t gonna get rid of Reynolds, so it isn’t gonna do shit to his golden boy, either.  There’s no stopping Tommy Stone’s career while Reynolds is protecting him.  I told Trevor that, but he wouldn’t listen.”  Curt shrugged.  “I’m safely here in England, so I guess I don’t really give a shit anyway.  Except it sounds like Brian’s started a counter-attack, blaming me instead of Trevor.”

            Of course, they all started clamouring for details about what Brian was doing, and Curt went into lavish detail about the Terrance Meyer thing, even though he had very few details to give that weren’t four years old.  Once he finished with that, they asked a few more basic questions, but soon seemed satisfied with their information, until the man from the BBC mentioned that he’d heard the rumour that Mandy Slade was also in town, and asked if Curt knew how to get in touch with her.

            “Yeah, I’ve got the number of where she’s staying,” Curt said, “but I’m not sure she’d want me to hand it out like this.”  They all begged him for it, until Curt sighed deeply.  “I’ll call her and see if it’s okay,” he told them.  “But if she says no, then you’re not getting it from me.  I don’t have enough friends to go pissing them off for no reason.”

            They all chuckled, but Arthur knew it was no joke, and it broke his heart to think of Curt being so low on friends that he’d need to worry about losing one.  He used to be the toast of all Europe.  No, that had been Brian.  Curt had always been in second place in everyone else’s eyes.  Even in Arthur’s, before his eyes saw Curt in the flesh.

            While Curt was dialling Mandy’s number, most of their media guests milled about uncomfortably, not liking to intrude on his telephone conversation, but not wanting to get too close to Arthur, either.  One of them was definitely trying to watch Curt dial, however, no doubt hoping to get the number even without Mandy’s permission.

            “Whoa, calm down!” Curt suddenly exclaimed into the phone.  “It’s me!”  Curt listened a moment, then sighed.  “Yeah, there’s a whole crowd of them here.  But how could anyone have gotten to you?  You don’t have a job to be traced through.”  Curt laughed in response to whatever Mandy had said.  “What a piece of shit!  So, uh, I guess you don’t want to talk to any more reporters, huh?”  He paused, listening.  “No, of course I don’t mean Arthur.”  Arthur did his best not to wince.  Telling them all that he was a journalist was the _last_ thing they wanted to do!  “Yeah, these guys wanted to talk to you.  But I wasn’t gonna give ‘em your number without your permission.”  Curt’s empty hand clenched into a fist.  “I can be considerate sometimes!” he shouted into the phone.  “Don’t be such a bitch!”  Mandy’s laughter was so loud Arthur could hear it coming out of the phone even on the other side of the room.  “Look, you want me to tell them to fuck off or what?” Curt asked, when the laughter subsided.  “Uh-huh…okay, I’ll tell ‘em.”  He hung up the phone, then turned to look at the suddenly wary reporters.  “She doesn’t want to give you her number or address, but she’ll talk to you.  She’ll meet you at the club where the Venus in Furs and I perform.  I assume you know the address.”

            The men all thanked him for his help, and hurried out of the flat.  Curt slammed and locked the door behind them.

            “What happened?” Arthur asked, once they were gone.  “Someone approached Mandy about the story?”

            “Yeah, some shithead sold her address to a tabloid.”  Curt shrugged.  “She wasn’t sure who did it.  She thought it might have been one of her new neighbours, or maybe the landlord.”

            “That’s awful,” Arthur said, shaking his head.  What could motivate someone to be so cruel?  Especially to someone like Mandy, who had already suffered so much.

            Curt walked over and sat down beside Arthur, stroking his cheek gently.  “But are you okay?  You look pale.”

            Arthur couldn’t help smiling at Curt’s solicitous concern, even as he had to explain the potential humiliation he faced from his co-worker’s presence among the other journalists working on the story.  “Maybe nothing will come of it,” he had to admit, “but it could be…”  He paused, sighing.  “I suppose there’s no point in worryin’ about it.  Whatever’s goin’ to happen will happen regardless.”

            Curt smiled at him, and leaned in for a deep kiss.  But they didn’t spend very long kissing before he let go again and asked what Arthur had learned from the American papers.  By the time Arthur finished filling him in on the details, the doorbell was already ringing again.

            “Fucking hell,” Curt grumbled, getting to his feet.  “Is this gonna go on all day?”

            “Probably,” Arthur agreed, unhappily.

            “Let’s go out somewhere after we get rid of this group,” Curt suggested as he headed to the door.  “If we can’t get privacy, I’d rather it be in public so maybe some of them would be fans instead of just bloodsuckers.”

            Arthur laughed, and agreed it sounded like a good idea.

            On the other side of the door, it was once again the woman from the American television station.  “Is this true?” she asked, holding up the magazine with Arthur’s article in it.

            “Of course it is,” Curt replied.  “Why would I have bothered sending you off to read it if it wasn’t?”

            Naturally, the woman wanted more details, which Curt duly provided, in practically the same words he’d used before.  Then he went on to inform her of what Arthur had read in the New York paper, regarding Terrance’s use of the same ‘script’ to falsely accuse Tommy as he had used to falsely accuse Curt.  She seemed astonished, but grateful, and soon left again.

            Once she was gone, Curt and Arthur hurriedly got themselves ready and left the flat.  They didn’t have any destination in mind, but anything was better than sitting there waiting for more of the same.


	11. Chapter 11

            Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so worried about going to work.  Even when he’d been three hours late and unsure if Tommy Stone’s people might have tracked him down and turned Lou against him, Arthur hadn’t been this worried.  Perhaps that made sense, though.  He’d had a long history at the _Herald_ , and he knew what kind of person Lou was, what sort of transgressions he was likely to forgive, and which he wasn’t.  But he had no history at his new paper, and didn’t really know his new boss at all.

            No amount of telling himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong was helping.  There was no policy against same-sex relationships—as far as Arthur could tell, at any rate—and there absolutely couldn’t be one against being involved with a singing star.  He _shouldn’t_ have had anything to worry about.

            And yet as soon as he arrived in the building, the receptionist told him the editor wanted to talk to him.  Arthur didn’t even need to go into the editor’s office to know he was now unemployed.

            He still went in anyway, of course.  He’d had obedience trained into him too well to resist its call.  “You wanted to see me?” he asked, doing his best to sound ignorant and unconcerned.

            “Of course I did,” the other man replied, staring at him through narrowed eyes, “and you know perfectly well why.”

            Arthur sighed, nodding.  “I do and I don’t,” he said.  “I don’t see how it’s any of your business who I’m involved with.”

            “Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be.  But when the man is under public scrutiny for something so scandalous?  If I allow you to keep working at this paper, you’ll be a liability.”

            “That doesn’t make sense,” Arthur insisted.  “Why would anyone care?  The story’s about Brian, not Curt!  He’s not even _mentioned_ in it!”

            “You don’t think I’m stupid enough to think a _guitarist_ wrote such a carefully polished article, do you?”

            Arthur couldn’t meet the other man’s gaze.

            “If you want my advice, you’ll find a new job that’s nothing to do with writing,” his ex-editor said as he handed Arthur his final pay voucher.  “If you do it fast enough, maybe no one else will figure out you wrote that story.”

            Finding he lacked the strength to keep fighting, Arthur nodded, and left first the office, then the building.  He tried to think of other jobs he could do for his whole trip back to the flat, but he wasn’t coming up with anything.  Other than writing, he didn’t have many skills.  Maybe someone would hire him as a typist, but that was a pathetic come-down from investigative journalism.  Not that there had been anything investigative about the job he’d just been sacked from, so he’d already fallen quite far as it was.

            Curt didn’t need Arthur to explain why he had come home so quickly.  He just pulled Arthur into a big hug and said “I’m sorry, baby.”  Arthur held him tightly, mostly to remind himself that he’d sacrificed his good job in New York for this chance to be together, that their love was worth any amount of humiliating unemployment.

            But he still didn’t want to have to go on the dole, so once he had calmed down a little, Arthur started calling his old friends to see if any of them could recommend him a new job.  Ray wasn’t home, but he was able to get hold of Malcolm.  Naturally, the first part of the conversation was Malcolm asking about Brian/Tommy, and when Arthur was finally able to explain why he was calling, Malcolm naturally spent some time trying to comfort him.

            “Do you know any place that might hire me?” Arthur asked.  He really didn’t want to have to ask Trevor for a job in his shop.  That would be utterly humiliating.

            Malcolm chuckled.  “I’d think so.  Billy’s running a little recording studio these days.  Nothing major, but big enough for us to record in.  I know he’ll give you a job, even if there’s nothing for you to do.”

            “I’d hate to take advantage of him like that,” Arthur sighed, “but at the moment there might not be any choice.”

            Malcolm gave him Billy’s work number, and Arthur was soon dialling it.  As Malcolm had said, he was thrilled to give Arthur a job, but at least he did have a position Arthur could actually fill:  he was to be the new public relations director, which would involve writing advertising copy and press releases, as well as calling people and making arrangements.  None of it was Arthur’s strongest suit, but he could handle all of it easily.  Considering he’d have been willing to take a position mopping floors if he had to, it was a relief to get such a respectable-sounding job.

            Of course, Curt was jealous that Arthur would be working for—and with—one of his exes, but a bit of a blowjob helped to ease his jealousy.

 

***

 

            Curt didn’t want to make a big deal about it.  He had been hoping there would be a lot more people in the audience for tonight’s performance—he would have been deeply disappointed if there weren’t, in fact—but he wanted to stay calm and cool.  Carrying on like a drunk kid was beneath him now.  He needed to look suave and mature.  To impress Arthur.

            Though impressing him probably stopped being necessary ten years ago.  But whenever Curt did something extra cool, it always made Arthur’s eyes light up, and that was so fucking sexy that he wanted to do it as much as possible.

            Keeping from acting like an idiot turned out to be harder than he was expecting.  Normally, when they arrived at the club, it was no big deal.  They went in the front, and no one noticed.

            Curt had known that the story about Brian’s new identity—and the subsequent media attention on him as Brian’s ex—would attract attention to his career, but he hadn’t quite been expecting to arrive at the club and find a mob outside so large that it was actually being herded by a bunch of cops.  The police sent them around the back to get inside without being overwhelmed by the riled-up fans.

            To Curt, that was just a pain in the ass, but Arthur seemed so excited by it that Curt half expected him to beg for sex _before_ the show as well as after.

            The show itself was a real trip.  The audience, as far as Curt could see from the stage, consisted mostly of people about Arthur’s age, all screaming and crying and generally acting like they did ten years ago.  They were so enthusiastic that Curt had trouble hearing himself singing; he kept unconsciously raising his volume to try to top them, until he was just shouting into the microphone.  There was something stupid about it, but it also felt great.

            Normally, they stayed at the club for a few drinks after a gig, but due to the crazy crowd, they were put straight into cabs—at the club’s expense—and sent home.  Well, that was fine.  It meant less waiting before the super-hot sex that Arthur’s eyes had been promising him all evening.

            The sex was hot enough that it would have been worth waiting for, but not having to wait was even better.

            Next morning, Curt wanted to sleep in, or at least fuck again before getting up, but Arthur insisted that he had to get up, to make sure he got in the proper routine.  As if one of the Flaming Creatures would fire him for showing up late to work.

            Curt tried to go back to sleep after Arthur got up, but it didn’t work too well, and soon enough he was stumbling his way into the kitchen, yawning.  Arthur looked up at him from the kitchen table, a worried expression on his face.

            “What’s wrong?” Curt asked, as he started pouring himself a coffee.

            “There’s been a new development,” Arthur said, sliding a newspaper at Curt as he sat down.  “Maybe it’s nothing, but…”

            “Terry learned more lines?” Curt suggested, laughing, then looked at the paper and was surprised to see that it was the British paper, and the article Arthur wanted him to see was about Brian, not Tommy.  He picked it up and glanced over the story.

            Apparently, as soon as the article exposing Brian’s new identity went public, his parents mailed a letter to the magazine, which was only just now being published in the papers.  The letter was signed with Brian’s name, and claimed that he was living in Birmingham with his parents, and that everything associating him with Tommy Stone was a filthy lie.  The paper had printed a full size reproduction of the letter, and Curt stared at it intently for several minutes.

            “That looks like Brian’s signature,” he announced, “but that’s not his handwriting.  Not even close.”

            Arthur nodded, frowning.  “But it’s clear Tommy’s responsible.  Look at the phrasing:  ‘the recent allegations connecting me with Tommy Stone,’ et cetera…”

            “Yeah?  So?”

            “So the question I asked him at the stage door in February was if he had any comment about the recent allegations connecting him with Brian Slade,” Arthur said, scowling.  “He not only told them what to write, it’s like he’s sayin’ he knows _I_ ’m involved with that story.”

            “I think you’re overreacting,” Curt sighed.  “He doesn’t know about us just ‘cause he used the same words you did.”

            Arthur chuckled.  “I didn’t mean he knew about you and me.  Just that he knew I had a hand in that story.”

            “C’mon, why would he think that?  You asked him a question in New York, not London.”

            “Not like I could ever ‘ave been mistaken for a New Yorker.”

            “Well, yeah, that’s true,” Curt had to admit.  Arthur’s accent varied between strong and thick as pea soup.  For the most part, that was just fine, since Curt loved listening to it, but it had probably sucked just a little for Arthur when he’d been in New York.  But now that he was back in London no one should care; it’s not like he was the only northern kid on those streets.  “But does it matter?” Curt asked, shaking his head.  “So what if he _did_ guess you wrote the article?”

            “Other than that he might tell people about it, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Arthur admitted with a sheepish smile that made something twitch inside Curt’s pants.

            “I would _love_ to see him try to tell people about that,” Curt laughed.  “No, no, it’s wasn’t Trevor who wrote that,” he whimpered, imitating Tommy’s voice as best he could, “it was this British bloke who asked me a question in February in New York!  Honest!”

            Arthur laughed.  “Put like that, it would sound stupid,” he agreed, “but I don’t doubt that the people protectin’ him figured out my identity quickly enough.  Especially since they’d already forced my editor to cancel the story.”

            “Even if they did, what good would it do him to tell people that?  It would be a random accusation against someone they’ve never even heard of.  He’d just sound desperate.”

            “If he told the public directly, yes.  But if he told a journalist investigatin’ the truth of the story?”  Arthur shook his head.  “They’d follow up, find out about us, and…”  He sighed.  “I don’t know.  Maybe that would make it _easier_ for people to believe that Tommy is Brian.”

            Curt shrugged.  “I say let’s not worry about it until it happens.  You worry about every possibility, you’re just gonna spend the rest of your life panicking over nothing.”

            “I suppose so,” Arthur agreed, with a weak smile, “but it’s hard to banish my fears so easily.”

            “I know how to banish them,” Curt promised.  “Let’s go back to bed.”

 

***

 

            Despite his worries, nearly a week had passed, and if anyone had figured out that Arthur was really the author of the article about Brian becoming Tommy Stone, they hadn’t made it known.  He was settling in at his new job, too, but it was not quite the job he’d been promised.  Billy, it turned out, was not a very competent business owner, and all his paperwork was a mess.  Arthur hadn’t done any of the things he’d been hired to do yet, because he’d been too busy going through the files and trying to sort it all out.  When he was able to work around Billy wanting to talk to him, anyway.  It was nice to spend time with his friends again, but they didn’t seem to understand just how little there was for Arthur to tell about his time in America.

            The recording studio itself was a bit more than Malcolm had indicated, though.  It was connected to a small, independent record company located just up the street, and about half the artists with the record company were actually contracted through Billy’s studio for some reason.  That, of course, was one of the reasons his paperwork was such a mess:  he didn’t seem to be quite sure if he was running a studio, a record label, or a management company.  But many of the young artists who came in to record there were actually quite talented, and Arthur enjoyed hearing their music as he worked.  Hard to remember the last time he’d been in a work environment that played music he could enjoy.

            After a particularly exhausting day of trying to untangle a ludicrous mess of legal paperwork regarding a band’s contract, Arthur got back to the flat to find Curt grinning at him from the couch.  “You must ‘ave had a better day than I did,” Arthur sighed.

            “Most of it was pretty dull,” Curt told him, taking a swallow from the beer in his hand, “but I just got a phone call.”

            “From whom?” Arthur asked, sitting down beside him,

            “Jerry Devine, if you can believe it.”

            “I’m not sure I can, actually.”  Not given what Mandy had to say about Jerry’s general attitude towards Curt.  “What did he want?”

            “The fucker was offering me a new contract,” Curt laughed.

            “What did you say?”

            “I told him to go fuck himself, of course.  But if he’s willing to sacrifice the little dignity he’s got to work with me, then actual managers with morals should be willing to work with me, too,” Curt said, slipping his arm around Arthur.  “So maybe my comeback is right around the corner!”

            “That’s great,” Arthur said, smiling at him.  It was hard to mean it fully, though.  Yes, he was thrilled by the prospect of Curt putting out a new album, but if Curt returned to full stardom, it wouldn’t take long for him to tire of Arthur.

            “You don’t sound like you mean that.”  Curt’s voice was flat; Arthur couldn’t quite tell if he was angry or insulted.

            “It’s not that,” Arthur assured him.  “I’m just too tired to be enthusiastic about anything other than gettin’ some kip.”

            Curt grinned.  “Well, let’s go to bed, then,” he said, with a lecherous grin that would normally set Arthur’s heart racing.

            “I’m too tired for that,” Arthur sighed.  “I really just want to sleep.”

            “Fine, then!  If you’re so bored with me, then go on and go!”

            “Curt, I’m not bored by you—I’m bleeding exhausted!  I’ve been workin’ all day, tryin’ to sort out the most mind-numbin’ contract anyone’s ever seen!”

            “That should leave you with extra energy from sitting still all day,” Curt said, a sulk forming on his face.

            “If I hadn’t been wrestlin’ with a thirty page contract rolled up like a scroll and dashin’ up the street and back to the label’s office, maybe.”

            Curt’s eyebrows raised.  “Who’d do that with a contract?  That had to be a fuckton of extra work.  Why didn't they just staple it like a normal person?”

            Arthur shrugged.  “It was printer paper; I suppose they decided it was easier not to detach the pages from each other.  Biggest nuisance I’ve ever seen.”

            Curt didn’t seem to know how to react to that; they sat there in silence for several minutes until he finally told Arthur to go on to bed.  He hadn’t put enough inflection in the command for Arthur to be sure if he was still angry or not.  Perhaps Curt wasn’t quite sure of that himself.  Either way, Arthur was too tired to worry about it.  He stumbled into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

            He was asleep almost the second his head hit the pillow.

            Surprisingly, it wasn’t his clothes being stripped off that woke Arthur up again, but the feeling of strong, firm hands massaging oil into his skin.  Being mostly asleep, all the reaction he could muster was a confused noise, utterly lacking in any proper verbalisation.

            “You’ll feel better after a massage,” Curt’s voice promised from behind Arthur.  “Then we can fuck all we want.”

            Arthur smiled, shutting his eyes again.  “Sounds good to me,” he agreed, with such a blissful feeling spreading through him that he felt as though he ought to be purring.

 

***

 

            There were a lot of bad things about Arthur’s new job.  For one thing, he was gone all day every day, except on weekends.  That made a lot less time for sex.  And for another thing, he was not only working directly for one of his ex-boyfriends, but for one of the much less freaky ones.  How was Curt supposed to be sure that there wasn’t anything going on there?  He probably wasn’t even getting paid that much more than he had been at the newspaper where he’d only worked two days a week.

            Despite how exhausted Arthur had been yesterday—and it better really have been work that had made him so tired, not cheating!—he was still the first one up, already in the shower by the time Curt could force himself out of bed.  By the time Curt joined him in the kitchen, Arthur was already sitting at the table with a cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast.  Curt had to be the one to get the bacon frying up; when Arthur objected that it wasn’t necessary, Curt reminded him that he needed protein for energy, so he wouldn’t come home dead tired again.

            As the bacon was sizzling, Arthur passed a newspaper in Curt’s direction.  “Here, ‘ave a look at this,” he said.

            “It better be good news,” Curt sighed, eyeing the other newspaper Arthur was reading.  He wasn’t a journalist anymore.  Why did he still insist on subscribing to four different newspapers, and reading all of them?  It was nuts.

            Arthur shrugged.  “Callin’ it good might be an overstatement, but it’s approachin’ it.”

            How did something just ‘approach’ being good news?  Curiosity piqued, Curt looked down at the newspaper in his hands.  It was turned to a page with entertainment news, and the headline read “Brian Slade Letter a Forgery?”  The article reminded its readers about the letter that had been printed about a week earlier, purporting to be from Brian, and insisting that he absolutely, positively was not Tommy Stone.

            Then it explained that the first step they had taken in determining the validity of the Slade letter was to ask Mandy what she thought of it.  Naturally, she said the same thing Curt had:  that the signature looked right, but nothing else was in Brian’s handwriting.  She’d even gone one step further and said that most of it wasn’t phrased the way Brian would have put it, which was very true, though Curt wasn’t sure if that was because Brian’s personality had changed so much since he’d become Tommy, or if maybe it meant Shannon had been the one to dictate the contents of the letter.

            Of course, the newspaper hadn’t wanted to accept Mandy’s word for it, since she was biased, and they had gone to a handwriting expert.  At the height of his career, a museum dedicated to the musical arts had asked Brian to donate some of the original sheet music for a few of his songs, complete with the hand-written lyric sheets.  Using that as a sample of his handwriting, the expert had compared thousands of ridiculously tiny details in the two hands, and had declared that it was almost impossible that the letter had been written by Brian.  The article didn’t even go into the stupidity of the very idea that Brian would be living _with his parents_ when he was in his thirties, after having once been one of the most important, popular and powerful rock stars in the world.  Or the fact that he’d never even really gotten along with his parents all that well in the first place.  Not that his home life had ever been as bad as Curt’s, of course.  Or even as bad as Arthur’s, for that matter.

            By the time Curt put the newspaper down and hurriedly scooped the half-burned bacon out of the pan, Arthur had set another newspaper at his place on the table.  Curt didn’t want to read _another_ newspaper article, but…considering a picture of himself was staring up at him from the page, it would have been stupid not to.  It was a picture of him in the recording booth, with Terry at the controls outside the booth, watching him through bloodshot eyes.  Looking at the picture, it was hard to tell which of them was in more pain:  his expression was so tortured that Curt could feel the hangover just by looking at it, and the picture of Terry was blurry around his hands, they had been twitching so badly.

            The article started out by describing the scene as Terry was rushed into an emergency room in Los Angeles yesterday about noon, in the throes of a drug overdose.  As of press time, they hadn’t been sure he was going to survive, so it must have been _really_ bad.  Then it repeated his twin accusations against Curt and Tommy, and gave snippets from what the paper claimed was an exclusive interview with one of Terry’s former co-workers, someone who had recently quit working at the studio where Terry worked.  He had still been working there when Tommy’s album was being recorded in New York, and he was very direct in saying that Terry hadn’t gone flying off to New York to help record it.  More importantly, he said everyone knew about Terry’s drug addictions, and the owner of the studio had been working to keep Terry from being able to get more, because if you overlooked all of Terry’s numerous personality flaws he was one of the best sound engineers in the business.  This former co-worker couldn’t imagine how Terry had gotten his hands on so much cocaine.

            Curt had a sinking feeling he knew exactly how he had gotten it.  But he couldn’t imagine why Brian would go _that_ far.  Especially since this was an accusation against _himself_ , not another one against Curt.  That, at least, would have made some modicum of sense.

            There was no indication that the story of Tommy Stone being an alias for Brian Slade had even broken in the US at all, however, despite that woman from the TV news crew learning about it.  Curt shook his head as he put the paper down again.  “Don’t know what else he wanted from it, but the move seemed to work as a domestic smokescreen,” he said.

            “Yeah,” Arthur agreed.  “When you were workin’ with him, was Meyer, uh…”

            “Addicted to blow?” Curt supplied.  “Fuck yeah.  Worse than Brian.  Not that I’ve got room to talk,” he added, with a sad sigh.  Maybe it was a sign that he really was entering middle age, but when he looked back on it, it was hard to remember what the hell he’d been thinking that he had ever thought doing drugs was a good idea.  He could remember that it felt good after he’d started—or at least kept him from feeling the pain of withdrawal—but whatever he had been thinking at first was now a mystery to him.

            “Curt…”

            “Don’t worry about me,” Curt said, patting Arthur’s leg under the table.  “I’m past that now, remember?”

            Arthur nodded, but he still looked concerned.  They were silent for a moment, then Arthur’s gaze slipped downwards to the newspaper still in Curt’s hands.  “What do you suppose will happen if he doesn’t recover?”

            “Other than a funeral?”  It probably wasn’t cool to joke about someone kicking the bucket, but somehow Curt couldn’t help it.

            “About his accusations.”

            “Oh, that.”  Curt shrugged.  “No clue.  People will probably forget about it.  Everyone decided a long time ago I had to be guilty of everything Terry accused me of, and no one seems to be believing a word of what he’s said about Tommy.”  Curt frowned.  “So I guess things just stay how they are now if he dies and can’t be made to take any of it back.  Taking it back wouldn’t help _us_ anyway; I doubt he’d bother admitting he’d lied about me, too.”

            Arthur bit his lip a moment.  “But your career—”

            “Isn’t worth worrying about.  If I can get it going again, great, and if not…well, I’ll think of something.”  Living off Arthur’s salary wasn’t really an option Curt wanted to consider long-term.  Especially since it wasn’t much of a salary.

            It took a bit more convincing to make Arthur accept that he had things other than Curt’s career to worry about.  In fact, they had barely finished discussing it by the time Arthur had to leave for work.

            Alone in the apartment, Curt was faced with the bitter reality that there wasn’t much to occupy his time.  He could watch what little TV was available, or he could read.  Ordinarily, he might play his guitar, but that landlady was already pissed at them, so it probably wasn’t a good idea to risk it; she was itching for an excuse to evict them.

            Miserably, he sat down on the couch and turned on the television.  There wasn’t anything on, though, so Curt turned it back off again.

            He really needed a hobby.

            Curt wasn’t sure what time it was when the phone rang, because he’d dozed off on the couch.  He probably sounded pretty bleary when he answered it.

            “I’m trying to reach Arthur Stuart,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said.  He sounded friendly enough, but he was also an American, so Curt didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

            “He’s at work.”

            “Is that so?” the man replied, sounding amused.  “But I just called his workplace, and they said he’d been fired more than a week ago.  They’re the ones who gave me this number.”

            “Just who the hell _are_ you, anyway?” Curt asked.  There was no reason to keep talking to him if he was one of Reynolds’ cronies.

            “Lou Goldstein,” the man replied.  “I was Arthur’s editor at the _Herald_.  I take it you’re Curt Wild?”

            Curt cleared his throat.  Had Arthur really told his ex-boss who he was fucking?  That didn’t seem very likely.  “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”

            “Why would I lie?”  The man sounded genuinely confused, but Curt knew he shouldn’t let himself be taken in by that.

            “What do you want?”

            The other man sighed.  “I’d rather tell Arthur directly.”

            “Well, I’m the only one here.”  Somehow, that sounded pathetic under the circumstances…

            “Hmm.”  A lengthy pause, broken only by the static of the cross-Atlantic connection.  “I suppose it can’t hurt.  There have been some men coming around the _Herald_ offices asking questions about him lately.”  The man on the other side of the ocean laughed.  “I recognized Arthur in the background of that interview at your door, but so far his name hasn’t been used in any of the news reports.  That’s obviously about to change, and since he promised he’d write me the occasional article from London, I wanted him to give the _Herald_ an exclusive inside look at the scandal.”

            “Which one?” Curt chuckled.

            “There’s more than one?”  He sounded surprised enough that Curt found it hard to believe he could really be one of Reynolds’ people after all.  But they couldn't have used much of that interview footage if it didn't even touch on the whole Tommy-is-Brian thing.

            “I’ll give him your message,” Curt said, then hung up the phone.  There was a lot fishy about this, but…well, at the very least it gave him an excuse to go to Arthur’s workplace and see for himself if his new boss was hitting on him.

            And it would break up the monotony of his day, too.

            When Curt arrived at the building that housed Billy’s recording studio, he found a group of young people just on their way out.  They were all about eighteen or so, and several of them were carrying guitars.  They were also all very excited to see Curt, and begged for autographs.  Normally, he didn’t like being beset by total strangers like that, but it hadn’t happened for years, so Curt obliged them.

            “Are you here to record your next album?” one of them asked, as Curt was signing the third or fourth autograph.

            “I’m just here to see someone right now,” Curt replied, shaking his head.  But that was a thought, though.  Why _couldn’t_ he just make a record here?  Instead of dealing with labels and managers and all that shit?  That was what the Flaming Creatures had done for their reunion album, and it was in record stores and selling pretty well.  He’d have to talk to Trevor and the others about the idea…

            After the impromptu autograph session was over, Curt went inside and asked around until he found Arthur’s desk.  He had his own office, right next door to Billy’s.  And the office was a disaster of paperwork.  Filing cabinets so stuffed with papers that the drawers couldn’t close, stacks of papers overflowing off the side of the desk, and even more of them stacked on top of the cabinets, and on the window sills.  There was even that scroll Arthur had been talking about last night, standing upright in the corner of the window.

            Arthur was half-hidden behind a computer screen and a pile of papers.  “Did you get the contract already?” he asked, without looking away from the computer.

            “What contract?” Curt replied, without thinking about it.

            Arthur’s head jerked up.  “Curt?  What are you doin’ here?” he asked, even as he got to his feet.

            “I came to see you, baby,” Curt replied, giving him a passionate kiss as soon as Arthur had cleared the side of the desk.

            “I’m really busy right now,” Arthur sighed.  “Could you come back about noon?  We could ‘ave lunch, or maybe—”

            “Actually,” Curt interrupted, before Arthur could turn him on by suggesting that they spend his lunch break fucking, “you got a phone call.”  He explained about the call from New York.  “I can’t be sure any of what he was saying was true, though.”

            Arthur nodded.  “One way to find out,” he said, returning to his desk.  He picked up the phone, and quickly dialed it.  “Hi, Betty.  Can I talk to Lou, please?”  He laughed in response to something the person on the other end of the phone said.  “I’m glad to hear it.  I’ve missed everyone, too.”  Did he really miss his co-workers from New York?  He’d never said anything about that.  “Lou?  It’s Arthur.  I—yes, exactly.  Who’s been askin’ questions about me?”  Arthur began to frown as he listened to the answer.  “The blokes from the other papers aren’t anything to worry about, but those others…”  He shook his head after a moment.  “No, I’m not in any trouble.  Not as long as I don’t go back to America, at any rate.”  Arthur seemed to have more he wanted to say, but instead he sat there silently, listening.  “I can write you a really spectacular exclusive, yeah, but you’ve got to promise not to put my name on it.  Let the byline say ‘our London correspondent’ or something.  The longer we can go without anyone findin’ out about me, the better.”  He let out a mirthless chuckle in response to something the man on the other end of the line said.  “No, I’m not worried about that.  Our landlady up and told a whole hall full of people that Curt was livin’ with a boyfriend.  It’s just…they don’t know I’m a journalist.  And I’d rather keep it that way.  You’ll understand when you see the article.”  Another pause left Arthur looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully.  “I think I can ‘ave it finished up in two days.  Sendin’ it airmail, it’d—”  He grimaced.  “I don’t think I can get it done any faster than that, no.  I’ve got a full-time job here.  Well, I’ll see what I can do, but you don’t ‘ave to worry.  It’ll be an exclusive, no matter what else is written in the meantime.  Someone’s been blockin’ a large part of the story from breakin’ in the US at all.”  Arthur let out a deep sigh after listening for a moment.  “No, I don’t know precisely who.  I’ve got a general idea, but without any facts to back it up…puttin’ it in the story would be risky at best.  I’ll outline the hard facts, and the readers can draw their own conclusions.  There’s a chance the responsible parties’ll expose themselves by objectin’ to the article as an accusation against them.”

            Curt did his best to wait patiently until the call was over, but his mind started wandering soon enough.  He didn’t like the fact that Arthur’s former London employer had handed out their home phone number so easily.  Maybe he ought to head in and have a talk with the guy, make sure that wouldn’t happen again.  It’d be better if he had a manager, though; then the manager could go in, and threaten to make a legal issue of it.  That’d probably scare him into keeping quiet.  No, that’d suck.  That’d be the same kind of thing that was being done to protect Brian’s new identity.

            The feeling of Arthur’s arms wrapping around him distracted Curt from his train of thought.  “You should probably go home, love,” Arthur said, kissing him.  “I’ve got work to do.”

            Curt glanced at his watch.  It was about a quarter to eleven.  “I could hang out in the area and come back for your lunch break,” he suggested.  “We could lock the door and—”

            “I’ll be needin’ my lunch break to write,” Arthur told him, shaking his head.  “Two days isn’t that long to write a story like this.”

            Despite that he knew that was true, it still annoyed Curt to hear it.  “You’re not even working for a newspaper anymore!” he pointed out.  “Why are you still so fucking wrapped up in all that shit?!”

            “You want to handle it yourself?” Arthur countered.  “Go ahead, then!  How were you plannin’ on fixin’ the disaster goin’ on in the world media?  As it stands, Tommy will get off without a scratch from the same accusations that wrecked your career!  You want to let that happen?  You want him to win?”

            Let Tommy win?  No, let _Brian_ win…  “Fucking hell.”  Curt breathed the words more than speaking them.  “That’s what he wants.  To win.”  Brian hated to lose.  He hated even to _tie_.  He always had to win.

            “Are you going to let him?”

            “I guess not,” Curt said, shutting his eyes.  “Part of me wants to, though.”  The part that still loved him.  Brian wasn’t as easy an addiction to shake as heroin.

            “Should I call Lou back and tell him I won’t write the article?”

            Curt shook his head, then opened his eyes to look into Arthur’s face.  His eyes seemed moist, but his face was an emotionless slate.  “No.   Letting Brian win I wouldn’t mind, but not Tommy.  And not Reynolds.”

            Arthur chuckled bitterly.  “Makin’ Reynolds lose is a taller order.  Probably not something this sort of article can accomplish.  But we can at least make him lose his favorite playing piece.”

            “Yeah.  Let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't until I was writing the phone call that I realized how slightly paralyzing it can be that none of Arthur's co-workers in New York have last names. I tried to pick one for Lou that fit what little we know about him, but...it feels off, somehow.
> 
> BTW, I'm beginning to think I need to revise the summary for this fic. When I wrote the summary, I had somehow forgotten just how much of the story took place after the locale shift. No matter how many times I reread/revise it, it's always the paranoia that stands out to me as its defining feature...


	12. Chapter 12

            Even though he wasn’t having to hunt up any information for this new article, writing something fresh and new again was a terrific relief for Arthur.  He hadn’t realised until now just how much those awful little recapitulations for the London paper had been stifling his soul.  Once all this blew over, he’d have to try applying for work at the local papers again.  Though Billy might hold a grudge if he quit before he finished fixing up the biohazard that passed for the studio’s filing system.  Still, how long could that take?  It couldn’t take longer than it would take for the media to forget about this ghastly state of affairs, surely.

            Given the strict time limit, Arthur decided he’d better eat his dinner at the computer.  Despite his better judgment, he asked Curt to watch the evening news broadcasts for him, just in case anything happened that he’d need to know about.  Curt was less than pleased, naturally, and Arthur wasn’t entirely sure he was going to do it.  But…well, even if he didn’t, what would it matter?  Missing a day or two of news wouldn’t be the end of the world.

            It was starting to get dark outside when Curt came into the second bedroom, where Arthur’s computer was still set up on the card table the neighbours had loaned him.  He was lucky his London editor hadn’t remembered about the computer to ask for it back.  “So how much of that shit do you actually want to know about?” Curt asked, as he sat down in the other chair.

            Arthur sighed.  “It’s hard to be sure,” he admitted.  “Anything that’ll affect the story?”

            “Possibly.”

            “Possibly?” Arthur repeated, looking at him curiously.  “How’s that?”

            “Well, it’s about Terry,” Curt explained.  “He’s stabilised into a coma.  If he wakes up, that’ll have a big impact, right?”

            “Yes, _if_.  Do they think he’ll recover?”

            “They’re not sure.”  Curt scratched his chest with an uncomfortable expression on his face.  “Not sure how I feel about that.  I mean, they were talking about how long he could stay like that before brain death set in, you know?  I never really got on with the fucker, but…damn.  It’s a little alarming, hearing them be so blasé about whether or not someone I know is gonna live or die.”

            Arthur nodded, unsure what to say.  If he was unsettled by the thought of the possible death of a former associate who had ended up more of an enemy than anything else, what must he have felt in the brief window when he had thought Brian was actually dead?  As much as Arthur wanted to know, he didn’t think he could bring himself to ask.

            The room settled into an uneasy silence, broken only by the loud whir of the computer.  “For the moment, I’ll just go on assumin’ that he won’t be changin’ his testimony any time soon,” Arthur eventually said, to break the silence.  “It can’t wait to see if he’ll wake up.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Was there anything else?”

            “Reynolds is a dick.”

            Arthur laughed.  “Tell me something I don’t know!” he exclaimed.  “What did he do this time?”

            “Someone was interviewing him and asked about Terry’s accusations against Tommy,” Curt sighed.  “The motherfucker started blasting Terry as a drug addict, and insisting that Tommy was a perfect little angel who’d never done anything wrong in his life.  _While_ he’s in a life-and-death coma, he’s saying this shit!  And there’s no way he doesn’t know that Tommy’s really Brian—and Brian was fucking _arrested_ with coke, you know?  It’s such hypocritical bullshit.”

            “That’s politics for you,” Arthur said, shaking his head.

            “Not in the rest of the world, right?” Curt asked, sounding surprisingly vulnerable.  “It’s only America that’s fucked up that bad, right?”

            “American politicians ‘ave perfected the art of bein’ lyin’ schemers, but it’s not really any different in the rest of the world.  America just has the magnified version,” Arthur said, shaking his head.  “Someone—I think it was Plato—once said that any man who wants to rule ought to be automatically disqualified from doin’ so.  The very fact that he wants the job proves that he’s not qualified for it.  In a nutshell, that’s why politics the world over are so fucked up.”

            “Great.  Let’s go live on the moon,” Curt sighed.

            “If we had a way of gettin’ there, that’d be lovely,” Arthur agreed.  “We could always hitch a lift on a passin’ UFO,” he suggested.

            Curt laughed.  “I’ll put out a sign on the roof to flag ‘em down.”  He planted a kiss on Arthur’s cheek, then left the room.  Within a few minutes, Arthur could hear the stereo turn on.  It was just low enough that he couldn’t quite identify the album, but he thought it might be Jimi Hendrix.

            Smiling, he went back to work.

 

***

 

            Arthur finished up the article not long after dinner on the second day he’d been working on it.  Curt suggested that they could have sex to celebrate—he’d stayed up so late working the night before that they hadn’t been able to fuck—but Arthur wanted to start polishing it straight away.

            How did Curt always end up with workaholics?  Watching Arthur focus so much of himself on writing an article was uncomfortably like watching Brian in the midst of composing a new song.  It didn’t seem right to complain, but it was really fucking frustrating to become such a low priority.

            Next time he was looking for a lover, Curt would have to be sure not to get involved with anyone who wrote anything.  Not even _letters_.

            Still, at least Arthur finished the revisions early enough that they were able to get in a little sex…though he didn’t seem to have much energy for it.

            The next morning, Arthur entrusted Curt with the addressed envelope to be mailed back to New York, then went off to work as if everything was totally normal.  How could he be so blasé about it?  Curt’s hands were practically shaking as he handed the envelope over to the clerk at the post office.  Airmail to New York from London wasn’t cheap, but it was the fastest way to get the information in print.  Assuming it could get past Reynolds’ censors.

            After spending a few hours killing time, Curt headed to the restaurant where he was supposed to meet the Venus in Furs for a lunch meeting with a prospective manager.  To his surprise, when he arrived, the only people in the booth were Trevor and Mandy.

            “Why’re you here?” Curt asked as he sat down.

            “I’m glad to see you, too,” Mandy laughed.  “I was thinking I might join the band for a little while.  I need to pay rent, too, you know.”

            “Is that okay with you?” Trevor asked.

            Curt shrugged.  “Don’t see why not.”  Mandy was no Brian—she had neither the skill nor the arrogance of a diva—but she wasn’t bad, either.  As long as she didn’t expect to be headlining any numbers, it should work itself out.  “So who’s this guy that wants to manage us?” he asked, looking over at Trevor.

            Trevor shrugged.  “Don’t really know her, to be honest.  She just came into the shop and said she was with a management company, and wanted to represent us.”

            “All of us, not just the Venus in Furs, right?”  If she wanted the back-up players and not Curt, he was going to make her regret it.

            Trevor laughed.  “Of course!”

            “Okay.  Well, if this doesn’t work out, I had an idea about how we could put out a record without a manager,” Curt said, then quickly explained about Arthur’s new job.

            “Yeah, I’d heard one of them had a little studio,” Trevor said, nodding, “but I think they’ve still got a manager handling distribution and all that.”

            “Oh.”

            Mandy started laughing.  “You should see your face!”

            “Fuck you.”

            “All right, all right, enough of that,” Trevor sighed.  “Look, what about the shite going on right now in America?  Is that going to cause us problems?  Because I don’t want us to sign a contract only to have you arrested or something.”

            “How could _I_ get arrested ‘cause someone’s accusing _Brian_ of shit?” Curt retorted.

            “Well…I don’t know…”

            “I couldn’t,” Curt informed him, “and considering both sets of accusations are false and he’s in a fucking coma, I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

            “Really?” Mandy asked, sounding surprised.  “What about those photos of you wrecking up the recording booth?”

            Curt grimaced.  “That was taken outta context.”

            Trevor looked at him with an uncertain expression.  “What kind of context could…really, mate, is this going to be a problem?  I remember what happened before.  I don’t—”

            “That was totally different!”  Curt had to sit there in silence, breathing heavily for several minutes as he tried to calm down and organize his thoughts.  “Yeah, I got pissed off at Terry and did some shit I shouldn’t’ve done.  You gotta understand, though, I was there in the studio, trying my best to be professional and get the song recorded despite my fucking killer hangover, and I look over at the booth and there’s Terry snorting cocaine right off one of the instrument panels!  Of course I went to shit.”

            “Why didn’t you tell anyone that at the time?” Mandy asked.

            “I did,” Curt sighed.  “But no one cared what I had to say.”  Curt shook his head.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Tommy’ had hired him a fucking publicist to make sure the story spread everywhere so quickly I couldn’t get anyone to listen to me defending myself.”

            “I’m sorry,” Mandy said quietly, patting Curt’s hand gently.

 

***

 

            Lou had called as soon as he received the article, and he assured Arthur that he’d see to it that it got to the front page uncut, and that he’d send a copy to London straight away.  That was great—Arthur always loved seeing his words in print—but it lacked the same sense of satisfaction that he used to get.  He wouldn’t be able to walk down the streets of London and wonder how many people there had read the words he had written, because he knew the answer:  none of them.  At least that awful recapitulation job had let him hear directly from people who had read his articles, though there would likely never again be a thrill quite on the same level as hearing one of the Venus in Furs talking about an article he’d written.

            But there were other ways of hearing about how his story had affected people, some of which indicated a level of success that Arthur had never dreamed of hitting.

            He had cuddled up with Curt on the sofa, and they were watching the evening news broadcast.  When the newsreader turned to the subject of entertainment news, a photo collage appeared behind him, containing two-thirds of Brian’s face and one-third of Tommy’s.  “The ongoing controversy over the allegation that Brian Slade has changed his name—and face—to become Tommy Stone today gained a new dimension.  While a letter has appeared, allegedly penned by Brian Slade, denying the accusation, there has been no response from Tommy Stone.  In fact, the story was not even made public in the United States, the local media there having been distracted by accusations against Tommy Stone of professional dishonesty and illegal drug use.”

            The newsreader smirked slightly as he adjusted the stack of papers in his hands.  “That changed this morning, as a New York newspaper printed a story spelling out the allegations in explicit detail.”  Arthur’s heart started beating faster.  One of his stories had made the television news!  Beside him, Curt tightened his grip, pulling Arthur closer against his side with a warm caress.  “The story was such a shock to the Americans that it made the morning news programmes across the country, and became the subject of debate in every radio chat programme.  By noon, President Reynolds himself called a press conference to address the issue.”

            The programme switched over to a recording of the conference, showing Reynolds at the podium in the White House press room.  “This scandal is not just a betrayal of the American people,” Reynolds insisted, “but a personal betrayal of me!”

            “Wow, not even trying to hide it,” Curt chuckled.  “You’ve heard of ‘a heart as big as Texas,’ now meet ‘an ego as big as America!’”

            “Bigger than that, I’d say,” Arthur added.

            The footage of Reynolds’ press conference continued a bit longer, as he got more and more worked up in his outrage at Tommy’s deep dark secret.  “I promise you, my fellow Americans, I will see to it that this foreign traitor is expelled from our fine country—along with all those benighted people who tried to hide his past perversions!”

            “Perversions?” Curt repeated, his voice practically a snarl.

            Arthur sighed, stroking Curt’s hair gently.  “He’d ‘ave called us perverts even without this.  Just focus on the bright side:  he just promised to banish his own enforcers.”

            The footage from the White House ended, and the newsreader was once more on the screen.  “Surprisingly, Tommy Stone has only responded to President Reynolds’ attack, and not to the article itself.  He did so over the telephone, in a radio interview.”

            The photo on the back wall changed just to a picture of Tommy, as a clip from the radio interview began to play.  “I would never betray the President—or the people of this fine country,” Tommy was insisting.  “I’m an American citizen, and I’ve always done all I can for this country.  I resent being attacked with false accusations of treason.  Even if I _had_ done everything I’ve been accused of, how would that be treason, or a betrayal of any kind?  It’s an outrage, being mistreated like this.”

            “Many have viewed Mr. Stone’s avoidance of the entire subject of Brian Slade as a confirmation that the story is true,” the newsreader said.  “Several news crews, over the past week, have attempted to contact Mr. Slade in person at his parents’ home—where he claimed to be residing—and have failed to encounter him there.  If it is true, then this programme would like to encourage him to come forward and admit the truth.  And if it isn’t, then Mr. Slade should come forth and allow himself to be filmed, to prove himself physically unlike Mr. Stone.”

            After that, the programme moved on to other stories, but Arthur’s mind was still reeling with the thought that this one story in the _Herald_ had caused such a large stir, when all his other stories had been largely ignored.  How often did anyone’s exclusive news story make television news in another country?

            “You know what’s gonna happen now, right?” Curt sighed.

            “What?”

            “Brian’s gonna hire some poor schmuck who looks a little like him to pretend to _be_ him, so he can claim he didn’t really become Tommy Stone.”

            “Ah.  Yes, that does seem likely,” Arthur agreed.  It probably would have happened eventually, even without the newsreader’s plea at the end.  In fact, Brian’s parents had probably been searching for someone who looked rather like Brian ever since the first story was released.

            “Pisses me off that the thing on the news was only about _Brian_ , though,” Curt went on.  “I mean, your story was mostly about me—about _us_ —wasn’t it?”

            “About half and half, really,” Arthur said.  “I naturally tried to leave myself out as much as possible.  But I did say you were livin’ with a new lover.”  He hadn’t wanted to describe himself as a ‘boyfriend’ in something so very public.  It implied things.  Most of those things were true, of course, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing.

            “I guess I shoulda read it before you sent it off,” Curt said, scowling.  “You did at least say that you were that lover, right?”

            “It didn’t seem prudent to admit that I was so biased about the story I was writin’, no.”  Arthur took hold of Curt’s hand, and gave it a squeeze.  “Don’t worry, all right?”

            “I still wanna know what you said about us,” Curt insisted.

            “I’ll turn on my computer and let you read it then, shall I?”

            “Oh, yeah, you can do that, huh?  Sounds good,” Curt agreed, nodding.

            Arthur got up off the sofa and went into the other room to turn on the computer, sorting through his disks to find the one with the story on it.  Curt came in while the software was still loading, and he stood there close behind Arthur, one arm around his waist, and the other around his upper chest, spreading a desirous nostalgia through Arthur’s whole body.

            Once the article was up on the screen, Curt sat down in the chair, and started reading it.  The whole time, Arthur watched his face, terrified that he’d see some spark of anger or irritation on it.  But Curt’s expression of mild concentration didn’t change, not until he finally pushed the chair back and got up.  “I’d’ve liked it better if you’d admitted you were the one I was fucking, but this is all right,” he concluded, then pulled Arthur close for a kiss.  “Let’s go to bed now,” he added, in a sensuous whisper.

            Arthur nodded.  “Just let me switch off the computer first.”

            Curt shrugged, and began making his way to the bedroom.  Even though Arthur hurried as much as he could in turning the computer off, Curt was already entirely naked by the time he got to the bedroom, lounging on the bed and looking impatient.  Arthur doffed his clothes as quickly as humanly possible, and soon they were kissing deeply, stroking each other into firmness.

            It was the kind of intense foreplay that made the pause for lubricant feel like an interminable delay, but somehow Curt managed to make it both better and worse as he was applying the lubricant to Arthur’s arse.  “I’m so crazy about you, baby,” he murmured, his eyes turning to meet Arthur’s, instead of staying on what he was doing.

            “Curt…”  Arthur wanted to express how much those few simple words had set his heart to racing, and filled him with an even stronger need to have their bodies joined as one, but he was too far gone to be able to assemble the words.  All he could do was stare into his lover’s eyes and hope his gaze was enough to convey his love.

 

***

 

            A few days after Arthur’s story in the _Herald_ broke, a televised interview with Brian’s mother appeared on the entertainment section of the news, in which she admitted the truth of Brian’s new identity, and of having forged the letter from him herself, at his insistence.  Apparently, Mandy had gone up to see her former in-laws, and managed to convince Mrs. Slade that it would be better for her son if the truth was known.

            About a week after that, Terrance Meyer recovered from his coma, and broke down in the face of all the news cameras that had shoved their way into his hospital room.  Though he started out trying to stick to his old story, either the pressure or the reminders of how close to death he had come snapped something inside him, and soon he was admitting that Tommy Stone had paid him with cocaine to make not only his current accusations against Tommy, but also his earlier accusations against Curt.  “I’ve hated myself for so long for accepting that first offer,” he claimed, his voice choking up.  “I never wrote a note of music in my life, but I had to do something, say something, or he’d have gotten me fired for doing drugs on the job.  But I—you don’t know what it’s like, being an addict!” he whimpered.

            Naturally, Meyer’s confession was the final stroke, and turned the whole world against Tommy Stone.  But by then he had already vanished, along with Shannon.  Watching a news broadcast of outraged Tommy Stone fans burning their posters, T-shirts and albums felt like a bitter déjà vu, and made Arthur feel all the better about himself for never having been as enraged with Brian as most of the other fans had been.

            Two days later, Arthur finally met Curt’s new manager, a fiftyish woman named Madge.  They were having a business meeting in the flat, with Curt, the Venus in Furs and Mandy all sitting around the dining room table—though they’d had to bring in the folding chairs from the computer room to allow everyone to have a place to sit—as Madge talked to them about her plans for their cumulative careers.

            “We need to make a statement straight away,” Madge insisted.  “Both literally and figuratively.”  She looked at Curt with a severe expression.  “If this group is to be taken seriously as musical artists in today’s world, people need to know that you are through with illegal narcotics, and regret your previous usage of them.”

            Curt sighed.  “I almost fucking died of an overdose in Berlin.  Isn’t that enough?”

            Madge shook her head.  “Countless people, famous or not, have had repeated close calls without learning from them.  Your well-publicised love life is already turning many minds against you without even hearing your music.  We need a positive to counteract that negative.”

            “Just what do you have in mind?” Curt asked, a slightly vicious edge to his voice.  Arthur shifted closer to him and set a gentle hand on his thigh, hoping to calm him down a little.

            “As a first step, announcing a new charitable fund dedicated to helping people break their drug addictions.”  Madge smiled, and the way the skin beside her eyes crinkled reminded Arthur of the warmth Lou often showed even when he was returning a draft covered in red ink.  “In announcing this, of course, the goal of eventually starting a clinic should also be added.”

            Curt shrugged.  “Fine by me, but none of us have time to run a charity or a clinic.”

            Madge laughed.  “Of course not,” she agreed.  “There are professionals who make their living administering charities.  Essentially, all you’d be doing is promising a certain percentage of your profits to paying those professionals and the overhead they require.  At least until such a time as the charity is making enough money in contributions to pay the overhead.”

            “How much of our profits are you talking about here?” Trevor asked.  “I’ve been counting on having some extra money coming in…”  Reg and Harley quickly echoed his statement, adding how humiliating it was to have a regular day job while trying to make a comeback as professional rock musicians.

            Madge shook her head.  “We’ll take all of that into consideration.  The lion’s share of the charitable donations should be taken from Mr. Wild’s share, of course.”

            “That is fucking bullshit,” Curt growled.  “There’s not one person in this room who didn’t take a shit ton of drugs back in the ‘70s!  Why am I the only one getting punished for it?”

            “How about because you’re the one with the international reputation of being a junky?” Reg said, shaking his head.  “Doesn’t matter how cleaned up you get.  People are always going to think you’re still an addict.”

            Curt muttered some _very_ unpleasant words under his breath about that, but didn’t strictly speaking try to argue with it.

            “I don’t think ‘shit ton’ is an accurate description for some of the rest of us, either,” Mandy said, casting an eye at Arthur.

            “Don’t look at me,” he said, shaking his head.  “I took a lot more drugs than you’d think lookin’ at me now.”

            “Looking at you now, no one would think you’d ever taken anything stronger than aspirin,” Trevor said, with a chuckle.  “But if you were really with the Flaming Creatures, you must have taken quite the assortment of drugs.”

            Arthur nodded.  “They tended to shy away from the hardest drugs, but made up for it with the sheer quantity of odder ones.”  He wasn’t sure, in fact, that he had any memories from 1976 that were memories of things that had actually happened.  Or if they had, they had probably been much less colourful than he remembered them.

            From the look of disgust and even disappointment on Madge’s face, _she_ had been the sole exception to Curt’s “shit ton” assessment, and was appalled to learn that the only other non-musician in the room was no different than the musicians, at least in that regard.  That passed, however, and soon the conversation moved on to details about new songs, new venues, and how long it would  be before they could put out an album.

            The meeting proceeded along those lines for another half hour or so before it disbanded and everyone left.  Once the door was shut behind the last of their guests, Arthur moved closer to Curt and put his arms around him.

            “Do we ‘ave time to make love?” he asked, trying not to sound as invested in the answer as he was.  “Or do you need to get to writin’ new songs right away?”

            Curt grinned at him.  “Hey, fucking is an important part of the song-writing process,” he said, leaning in to kiss Arthur passionately.  “We can make love now, and then I’ll write a song about it afterwards.”

            Arthur laughed.  “I love you,” he said, before returning the kiss with even more passion.


End file.
